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THOMAS CHATTERTON 




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rHOMAS CHATTERTON 

THE MARVELOUS BOY 

THE STORY OF 
A STRANGE LIFE 

i 7 5 2 - i 7 7 o 



BY 

CHARLES EDWARD RUSSELL 



ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 

MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 
1908 



Copyright, 1908, by 

MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 

NEW YORK 



All rights reserved 
Published, March, 1908 



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T/je Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. U.S. A. 



THOMAS CHATTERTON 

With Shakespeare's manhood at a boy's wild heart, — 
Through Hamlet's doubt to Shakespeare near allied 
And kin to Milton through his Satan's pride, — 

At Death's sole door he stooped, and craved a dart; 

And to the dear new bower of England's art, — 
Even to that shrine Time else had deified, 
The unuttered heart that soared against his side, 

Drove the fell point, and smote life's seals apart. 

Thy nested home-loves, noble Chatterton, 
The angel-trodden stair thy soul could trace 
Up Redcliffe's spire; and in the world's armed space 

Thy gallant sword-play: — these to many an one 

Are sweet forever; as thy grave unknown 
And love-dream of thine unrecorded face. 

— Dante Gabriel Rossetti, "Five English Poets. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

An Early Day Scholar in Politics i 

CHAPTER II 
Dreams and Realities 13 

CHAPTER III 
The Rift in the Clouds 40 

CHAPTER IV 
The Trade of a Scrivener 61 

CHAPTER V 
The Rising Flame 127 

CHAPTER VI 
Now Cracks a Noble Heart 190 

CHAPTER VII 
The World's Verdict 225 

vii 



vin CONTENTS 

APPENDIX I 

PAGE 

Historie of Peyncters yn Englande 269 

APPENDIX II 
William Canynge 274 

APPENDIX III 
Canynge and Rowley 277 

APPENDIX IV 
The Rowley Controversy 282 

Index , 287 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Chatterton Frontispiece , 

{From the painting of Henry Wallis, R.W.S., National Gallery of 
British Art.) 

The Famous North Porch of St. Mary Redcliffe ... 6 

Colston's School, as it was in Chatterton's Time ... 30 / 
{From an old water-color in the Bristol Museum.') 

The Bristol Bridge, that was built in Chatterton's Time . 64 
{From an old water-color in the Bristol Museum.) 

The Supposed Portrait of Chatterton 94 

{From a Photograph in the possession of Mr. Edward Bell.) 

Two Specimens of Chatterton's Work 106 

1. Photographic copy of the parchment, purporting to he the original 

of a poem by Rowley. 

2. The Arms of Canynge as designed by Chatterton. 

The House where Chatterton Died, No. 39 Brooke Street, 

London 222 ' 

{From an old print in the possession of the Bristol Museum.) 

St. Mary Redcliffe, from the North 258 * 



CHRONOLOGY OF THOMAS CHATTERTON 

Born at Bristol November 20, 1752 

Admitted to Colston's Charity School .... August, 1760 
Wrote his first extant poem when ten years 

old December, 1762 

Published it ("On the Last Epiphany") . January 8, 1763 
Published "The Church-Warden and the 

Apparition" January 7, 1764 

Left Colston's, apprenticed to Lawyer Lam- 
bert July 1, 1767 

Published the account of the opening of 

the Old Bridge September, 1768 

Completed "Aella, a Tragycal Enterlude" 

before December, 1768 

Correspondence with Horace Walpole .... March to July, 1769 
Completed his satirical poem "Kew Gar- 
dens" about March, 1769 

Had his Indenture cancelled April 16, 1770 

Started for London April 23, 1770 

His friend, Lord Mayor Beckford, died . . . June 19, 1770 

Completed his "Balade of Charitie" July, 1770 

Killed himself in Brooke Street, London . August 24, 1770 

Among his Contemporaries were: 

Dr. Samuel Johnson 1 709-1 784 

James Boswell 1740-1795 

Edward Young 1681-1765 



xii CHRONOLOGY OF THOMAS CHATTERTON 



Thomas Gray 1716- 

William Collins 1720- 

Mark Akenside 1721- 

Oliver Goldsmith 1728- 

Bishop Percy 1728- 

William Cowper l 73 l ~ 

Charles Churchill I 73 I_ 

George Crabbe I 754 - 

William Shenstone J 7I4~ 

William Mason 1724- 

"Ossian" Macpherson 1738— 

Hannah More 1 745- 

Joseph Warton 1722- 

David Garrick 1 7 I 7~ 

Richard Brinsley Sheridan I 75 I ~ 

Sir Joshua Reynolds 1723— 

Thomas Gainsborough *7 2 7~ 

The Elder Pitt 1708- 

Horace Walpole I 7 I 7~ 

Lawrence Sterne l 7*3~ 

Tobias George Smollett 1721- 

Samuel Richardson 1689- 

William Blackstone l 7 2 3~ 

William Herschel 1738— 



771 
756 
770 

774 
811 
800 
764 
832 
7(>3 
797 
796 

833 
800 

779 
816 
792 
788 
778 

797 
768 

77i 
761 
780 
822 



PREFATORY NOTE 

I HAVE tried in these pages to set forth the plain 
records of this extraordinary story with hope to 
do something, however little, however poor and in- 
adequate, to clear from calumny and undeserved 
reproach the memory of one of the greatest minds 
and sweetest souls that ever dwelt upon this earth. 

That in the short span of his unhappy life this 
boy should have produced works of the first order 
of genius, works ever since the marvel of all persons 
that have considered them, works profoundly affect- 
ing the body and the development of English poetry, 
is the most amazing fact in literature. Next to it 
in wonder I place the fact that this great spirit, this 
artist and poet, this lover and benefactor of his kind, 
this assailant of absolutism, this boy hero of revolt, 
this leader at seventeen in the army of man, has 
been kept by false report and malignant slander 
from his true place in the affections of the race he 
labored for. And next to this I place the fact, 
herein, I think, for the first time made clear, that all 
of these false reports and all of these slanders had 
no other origin than the petty malice of a spiteful 



xiv PREFATORY NOTE 

and vindictive old man. For I deem it impossible 
to come from any impartial and first-hand investi- 
gation of these matters without the conviction that 
Thomas Chatterton would never have been called 
a Literary Forger, would never have been a moral 
warning to the young nor an outcast among the men 
of letters, if he had not offended Horace Walpole, 
Earl of Orford. 

With what monstrous injustice he has been 
branded with that word Forger, how unreasonably 
he has been assailed, how far his actual life, full of 
love, tenderness, and good deeds, was above the 
libels that have been cast upon it, I have labored 
here to make plain. For the first time the state- 
ments derogatory to Chatterton's character have 
been traced from hand to hand back to the one 
fountain head, identical in each instance; and for 
the first time an attempt has been made to compare 
the accepted narrative with the available records. 
It may ease others as I was eased to know that the 
wonderful boy, whose days were so unutterably sad 
and lonely and whose heart was so infallibly kind, 
was not a libertine, was not dissolute, was not venal, 
and was not a Literary Forger. And it may instruct 
others as I was profoundly instructed to know that 
in the remarkable vitality of these monstrous false- 
hoods he has paid the penalty for attacking privilege 
and championing the cause of mankind. For in more 



PREFATORY NOTE xv 

ways than one this boy has been a martyr of democ- 
racy, and no one may doubt that if he had fought for 
absolutism as fiercely as he attacked it, there would 
now be no need to defend his reputation. 

It is time to have done with the prejudice and 
bigotry that have obscured this glorious name. The 
world crushed out the life of Thomas Chatterton 
when he was still a boy. That ought to be enough. 
With cudgel and savage injustice and cruelty and 
privation it embittered almost every moment of his 
existence. That ought to be enough. For more 
than one hundred years it has dwelt with moral 
edification upon his poor little errors. That ought 
to be enough. Possibly now is more profit to 
be had from considering his magnificent art, the 
products of his unequaled genius and the natural 
goodness of his heart. To try in some way to further 
such consideration was the object of this book. 

Some obstacle to a wide reading of Chatterton has 
been found in the strange and antique garb of the 
Rowley poems. An attempt is made here to show 
how slight is this obstacle by printing examples of the 
poems in their original and others in a modernized 
form. There will also be found analyses of 
musical themes employed by Chatterton that may 
seem to exhibit more clearly the unusual nature of 
his endowment and the essential beauty of his work. 

The materials here used have been drawn chiefly 



xvi PREFATORY NOTE 

from the invaluable collection of books, documents, 
and letters referring to Chatterton, now preserved 
in the Bristol Museum and Library. The discovery 
that Barrett knew of and aided the attempted im- 
posture upon Walpole Mr. Edward Bell had briefly 
noted among the documents in the British Museum, 
and further investigation, following this vital fact, 
seemed to show the whole of Barrett's conduct in 
a light that leaves small room to blame the boy 
and much to doubt the man. Of the extant 
biographies I have found that of Professor Wil- 
son and the short life written by Mr. Bell (and 
used as a preface to Skeat's edition of Chatter- 
ton's poems), to be the most accurate as they are 
also the most interesting and sympathetic. The 
other lives, being made up chiefly from the 
errors of Dix and Chalmers, are not available for 
the purposes of the modern biographer. I have 
been at pains to verify, so far as possible, from the 
original sources, all the statements made here con- 
cerning Chatterton's career; and whether the result 
be ill or good, at least this is true, that nothing has 
been taken for granted nor accepted on light evi- 
dence. 

I should be much to blame if I omitted from this 
note an expression of my gratitude to the good city 
of Bristol that, with a universal and genuine kind- 
ness, so long and so often harbored me and fur- 



PREFATORY NOTE xvii 

thered in every way my design. Surely the stranger's 
path could not have been made pleasanter for him. 
To many of the citizens of Bristol and many persons 
elsewhere I am under enduring obligations: to Mr. 
Alderman Barker, J. P., of Bristol, for his active 
assistance in securing from the municipal govern- 
ment permission to examine and photograph the 
Chatterton relics that are now part of the city's treas- 
ures; to Mr. L. Acklan Taylor, of the Bristol Library, 
for unwearied efforts in my behalf; to Mr. Jackson, 
headmaster of the St. Elizabeth's Hospital school, 
to the vicar of St. Mary Redcliffe, to Mr. Mayhew, 
of the British Museum, for generous assistance; to 
the authorities of the British Museum for permission 
to examine and photograph the Chatterton relics 
there, and lastly to the Bodleian Library at Oxford. 

Fourteen years have passed since this inquiry 
began. If now it bear fruit in a word or a sugges- 
tion that may help any one to a better acquaintance 
with a mind in whose companionship I have found 
2;reat and always increasing pleasure, I shall be glad. 

C. E. R. 

New York, November I, igoy. 



THOMAS CHATTERTON 

I 
An Early Day Scholar in Politics 

THE time was the time of the Roses, Red and 
White; the England was the England of Henry 
VI and Edward IV, torn with long dissensions, and at 
last with civil war. In all such eras are a few minds 
that the prevailing atmosphere of unrest seems to 
make nimble to nobler exercises than the trade of 
blows. One such mind that then illumined and 
enlivened the ancient busy seaport of Bristol was 
destined after centuries (so strangely come about 
the threads of life), profoundly to affect men, man- 
ners, and arts whereof its own day had no dream. 

Bristol has ever had pride in her commerce and 
in her churches, both remarkable, and to both this 
man notably contributed. He was a great merchant, 
a tower of commercial strength, the legitimate fore- 
runner of modern mercantile princes and potentates, 
by name William Canynge. His ships sailed all seas 
known of his age; they brought home rare products 
from strange far-away regions, like Spain and 
Portugal, and even, by connection with Genoa and 
Venice, from the mystical East. He was of a family 



2 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

of merchants. His grandfather, whose name and vir- 
tues he repeated, had founded the house and carried 
it to fame and success, and thrice had been mayor of 
Bristol; his father, though less distinguished, had 
managed to steer the family fortunes through the 
seas of troublous times, and now the younger William 
far outdid their achievements. He built ship after 
ship, he grew in wealth and power, he was five times 
chosen mayor, his fame as the richest and most en- 
terprising merchant in the west spread far abroad, 
he was known at court and, for all the royal tempta- 
tion (in those days of rapine) to plunder a man of 
such reputed wealth, he long escaped unfavorable 
attention. 

He was likewise of an intellectual habit and of 
taste in the arts; he knew and loved good architec- 
ture, he loved learning and had for his times an 
unusual share of it. His ships might go armed and 
his captains might pursue methods that in later and 
more orderly times would insure their hanging; for 
himself, his ways were ways of pleasantness. With- 
out the city, in a fine terraced garden by a branch of 
the Avon, he built a house, spacious for those days, 
a part of which still standing attests eloquently the 
excellent art of its builder. This Red Lodge had a 
great hall wherein was a magnificent broad stair- 
case, elegantly carved and adorned, a balcony, justly 
planned, and a generous fireplace. The beam ends 



AN EARLY DAY SCHOLAR IN POLITICS 3 

were cut after a chaste design, the ceiling was im- 
posing; all the house, so far as the remains testify, 
spoke of sound and discriminating judgment and an 
indomitable sense of esthetic propriety. 

He was, in truth, an extraordinary person, this 
Canynge. The chief line of trade of his paternal 
house was the woolen staple. William so extended 
and furthered it that he became in it an international 
figure, and treaties were made about him and his do- 
ings. He had a natural inclining towards politics, not 
less than towards learning. Almost with manhood he 
began to take active part in public affairs. First he 
was chosen bailiff, then sheriff, then mayor, and finally 
his admiring townsmen sent him to Parliament. His 
practise was ever towards a prominent part in what- 
ever chanced to be the current event; in Parliament 
he had a hand in the attainder of Jack Cade, after 
that fustian rebel's career had made an end; and 
when it dawned upon the intellect of his day that if 
the common people had revolted they must have 
had something to revolt about, he helped to investi- 
gate that surpassing strange mystery. The investi- 
gation led him upon delicate ground. He was a 
zealous advocate and personal friend of King Henry 
VI, and much of the blame for the popular discon- 
tent was found (or imagined) to rest upon King 
Henry's strenuous consort, Queen Margaret; a situa- 
tion that might have puzzled any statesman. But 



4 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

the Canynge mind was ever in emergency resourceful. 
The merchant found a way to do his duty by the 
nation without straining his friendship for the King, 
who testified to his appreciation of so intelligent a 
subject by securing special concessions from Den- 
mark for the Canynge woolen trade. 

Parliament dissolved, Canynge returned to Bris- 
tol and was promptly re-elected mayor. He must 
have been a most generous soul as well as a canny and 
a popular. Perdurable tradition has connected his 
name with more benevolent enterprises than any one 
man of his times could possibly have sustained, a cer- 
tain if somewhat awkward testimony to the esteem 
of his compatriots; but one of his undoubted gifts to 
Bristol proved to be, in a way, her most valuable 
possession. A little to the south of his surburban 
residence rose a hill and thereon (of ancient foun- 
dation) a church of St. Mary. Tradition assigned 
the origin of this church chiefly to the liberality of 
one Simon de Burton or Bortonne, a famous citizen 
and six times mayor of Bristol, in the thirteenth 
century, though tradition was probably wrong. In 
the time of the elder William Canynge the church 
had fallen into much decay. The grandfather had 
begun to rebuild it; the grandson took up the pious 
work and completed it at his own expense and that 
not small, for it is a majestic edifice. What share 
he had in the design of the restoration is lost with 



AN EARLY DAY SCHOLAR IN POLITICS 5 

more important matters in the dust of the ages; but 
he had a fancy for building, a clear eye, the sense of 
beauty, and if the plan had no origin in his mind, 
doubtless it was of his choosing. The result was the 
most beautiful specimen of Perpendicular architec- 
ture in England and probably the most beautiful in 
the world. Queen Elizabeth, when she saw St. 
Mary RedclifFe, declared it to be the fairest and good- 
liest parish church in her realm, and whatever may 
have been her shortcomings otherwise, about such 
things she had a nice and discerning taste. The 
church is, indeed, a kind of poem in stone, so ex- 
quisitely is it proportioned and so faultlessly done. 
Height, length, breadth, convey an inevitable im- 
pression of massive and adorned nobility; between 
the length of the nave and the height of the tower, 
between outline and ornamentation, between detail 
and detail, is such wedded harmony as seems to 
strike audible notes of pleasure. The main portal 
has a noble arch, the finials are most graceful, the 
tracery of eaves and cornice is like lace-work. About 
it all, merely to look at it, is a singular and romantic 
charm. The other churches of Bristol, as elsewhere 
in England, are interesting enough but rather plain; 
this among parish churches stands almost alone in 
the rich and intricate beauty of its conception and 
the perfect adaptation of all its adornments to the 
general effect. Gazed at from a little distance it 



6 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

seems to be more of the air than of earth and to 
possess spiritual significance both restful and in- 
spiring. 

The crown of all its beauties is the wonderful 
North Porch, a hexagonal tower of no great height, 
but sweetly planned and harmoniously decorated, 
as near perfection as English architecture can show, 
whereof the clean richness infallibly arrests every 
observing eye. In this tower, on the east side of 
the entrance (which has a groined ceiling), was made 
a spiral staircase, and this led by many steps to a 
room at the top, lighted by windows in each of the 
six sides. Here in great locked chests were kept 
the records of the church and its treasures, the silver 
urns and vessels of its altar, the moneys that came 
to it, and in the end, the parchment property deeds 
of the land in the parish. This place was called the 
Muniment Room. 

Here comes in the other man of this story, the sup- 
posed priest, the mysterious person whose very name 
was afterward for almost a century a thing to pre- 
cipitate furious controversy, whose very existence is 
bound in such clouds of endless and baffling specu- 
lation that no man may now come to the truth. So 
meager are the certain facts, so vast and imposing the 
fabric of romance reared upon them, there is scarcely 
another character in English history more alluring 
to futile fancy building. Assuredly there was a 




The Famous North Porch of St. Mary Redcliffe. 
( The Muniment Room, which contained " Canynge's Coffer " and the old parch- 
ments, is at the top, lighted by the narrow windows.) 



AN EARLY DAY SCHOLAR IN POLITICS 7 

Thomas Rowley; he seems to have been of the 
church, he was in Bristol at the time St. Mary Red- 
cliffe was rebuilt. The records of the adjacent see 
of Wells speak of his ordaining to be an acolyth 
there. Tradition or wild imagination has assigned 
him conspicuous share in William Canynge's great 
work. Whether he was the rich man's dearest 
friend, confidant and adviser, whether he was a 
scholar notable in his times, whether he was any 
friend of learning, or whether, as there is some 
reason to think, he was no more than a plain and 
common-place good citizen, nothing certain can be 
said; and yet, in the strangest way, the mere name 
of him, the mere suggestion of his shadowy being, 
has come to be of far more importance in the 
world than the blazoned deeds of many a less 
dubious hero. 

To the church he had so handsomely recreated 
the merchant was open handed. Tradition has 
hung upon the garment of his life a deal of philan- 
thropic embroidery, but of his repeated benefactions 
to St. Mary RedclifFe is genuine record. In small 
things and in great there is evidence of his essential 
goodness; indeed, he must have been a pleasant man 
to know, a kind of human oasis in the acrid desert 
of his times, for he had democratic tendencies and 
a kindly heart. For instance, when his cook died 
he buried him in the floor of the church at the south 



8 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

end of the transept, and adorned the tombstone with 
emblems of the dead man's craft. This might mean 
merely that William Coke was a master of his art 
and testify as much of the mayor's appreciation of 
venison pasty as of his democracy, were it not that 
Canynge was a passing spare man of ascetic habits, 
and that when John Brewer and James Purse- 
bearer, also of his household, went likewise the way 
of flesh, he honored each with a similar tribute. 
Of the general impress he made upon the common 
mind of his day there is ample evidence. It must 
have been a sincere affection in which he was held, 
for it long survived him and had a curiously indelible 
stamp. 

He was excellently married, but his children all 
died in infancy. For his wife, Johanna, he cherished 
an esteem and a reverent affection rather out of the 
common. When she died he paid to her virtues the 
honor of a beautiful effigy in St. Mary RedclifFe, 
and a tribute of celibacy that, according to tra- 
dition, resulted, strangely enough, in the fall of all 
his earthly hopes and the ruin of his public career. 

Politically, the times grew worse, the sun of York 
began to eclipse the gentle Lancaster, brawl and 
riot swelled to open war. From sincere sympathy 
Canynge was a Lancastrian. In some wonderful 
way he so held his course that abating no jot of his 
affection for Henry he kept his state and fortune 



AN EARLY DAY SCHOLAR IN POLITICS 9 

after the White Rose had triumphed and Edward 
IV was come to the throne. But he went not 
altogether unpunished. After a time the genial 
monarch came down to Bristol on what may be 
termed a visit of inspection for his own profit, and 
made himself a guest at the Red Lodge. Canynge 
lavishly entertained his powerful and erratic visitor, 
but was doubtless not grieved when he departed. 
The whole incident might well have been viewed with 
concern, for it appears that Edward, having utilized 
his opportunity as a guest to learn much of the 
wealth of Bristol (where there had been many 
Lancastrians), soon after levied upon the city a fine 
"for his peace." That is to say, he replenished his 
exchequer at the expense both of his late foes and 
his more recent entertainers. From Canynge he 
took three thousand marks in ten vessels, a predation 
that must have been a heavy blow to the merchant. 

Royal Edward had other attentions in store. 
There was at court in those days a titled lady of the 
Widville family that for reasons of his own the 
amiable king desired to have married, and it may 
have struck the kingly mind that Canynge, being a 
commoner, would feel flattered by an offer of such 
a union. Obviously the merchant had other views 
of the matter. We have no knowledge of the fair 
lady Widville, appointed to confer upon him the 
honor of her hand, but we have some knowledge 



10 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

of Edward IV, and we may suppose that more rea- 
sons than fidelity to the memory of his late wife had 
weight with the merchant. He demurred to the 
royal will and was unmoved when the masterful 
Edward insisted. It was an age when the ax was 
handy and the headsman industrious; Canynge had 
known in his own city some horrid instances of what 
kings could do with these instruments of their 
pleasure, and he lost no time in assuring his safety. 
With what part of his means was tractile he fled to 
the church, took holy orders, and sanctuary shut 
its doors in the baffled king's face. 

Esoteric consolations seem to have availed much 
with the undismayed Canynge. He retired pres- 
ently to the Abbey at Westbury. The rest of his 
life, eight years, he spent in the ministrations of his 
office and in good deeds, among which was the found- 
ing of a college. He died November 7, 1474, Dean 
of Westbury. Two effigies of him adorn St. Mary 
RedclifTe. One showing him in his magisterial robes 
as mayor of Bristol was made in his lifetime and 
designed to lie by the side of his wife's image. The 
other, copied from this, is carved in alabaster and 
shows him garbed as the Dean of Westbury. The 
rare tribute of two effigies in one church is suf- 
ficent evidence of the esteem in which the community 
held this unusual man. If the sculptured face, as 
is probable, resembled the living, the merchant 



AN EARLY DAY SCHOLAR IN POLITICS II 

prince was of a thoughtful and somewhat melan- 
choly expression and must have been an interesting 
figure. 

Something of his story is told in this epitaph 
in the wall above the alabaster figure: 

M r William Caning s , ye Richest marchant of y e towne 
of Bristow afterwards chosen 5 time s mayor of y e said 
towne for y e good of y e comon wealth of y e fame. Hee 
was in order of Priesthood 7 years & afterwar s 
Deane of Westbury and died y e 7th of Novem 1474 
which said William did build within y e said towne of 
Westbury a Colledge (which his canons) & y e said 
William did maintaine by space of 8 years 800 handy 
crafts men, besides carpenters & masons, every day 
100 men. Besides King Edward y e 4th had of y e said 
William 3000 marks for his peac c to be had in 2470 l 
tonnes of shiping. 
These are ye names of his shiping with their bur 1 en 

TONNES TONNES 

ye Mary Canings 400 ye Mary Batt 220 

ye Mary RedclifFe 500 Ye Little Nicholas .... 140 

ye Mary & John 900 ye Margarett 200 

ye Galliott 050 ye Katharine of Boston 22 

ye Katherine 140 A ship in Ireland 100 

Close at hand is this metrical tribute, no doubt of 
a later date: 

1 Thus the inscription. The tonnage of the ships in the list is not "2470" but 
2672. But these carvers of epitaphs were a careless race. 



12 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

No age nor time can wear out well won fame 

the stones themselves a featly worke doth shew 

from senceless grave we ground may men's good name 

And noble minds by ventrous deeds we know 

A lanterne cleere settes forth a candell light 

A worthy act declares a worthy wight 

the Buildings rare that here you may behol d 

to shrine his Bones deserves a tomb e of gold 

the famous Fabricke that he here hath don ne 

shines in the sphere as glorious as the son ne 

What needs more words y e future world he sou ght 

An set y e pompe & pride of this at nought 

heaven was his aime let heaven be still his stat Ion 

that leaves such work' for others imitation. 

Of Rowley there is no more record. He came and 
went like a shadow across the face of events, with 
only to tell of his passing a scantly discernible name. 



II 

Dreams and Realities 

William, thus the last of the Canynges, had been 
dust three hundred years; part of his beautiful house 
had been demolished and the rest obscured; the 
name of Thomas Rowley had faded from the human 
memory; the life records of historic merchant and 
legendary friend with all their ways and works were 
knee-deep in the dead leaves of oblivion; when sud- 
denly both were revived to fame through the appear- 
ance of a figure much more remarkable than either. 

Almost in the shadow of St. Mary Redcliffe, in 
I a narrow and now squalid street that bounds the 
churchyard on the north, is a little two-storied stone 
schoolhouse, fronted by a thin strip of verdure and 
abutting rearward upon the remains of an ancient 
garden. It is almost two hundred years old, the 
Iseat of a school founded by a charitable tradesman 
of Bristol in 1733. Within, the square uncom- 
promising schoolroom occupies the front part of the 
ground floor; the rest of the house is the narrow 
quarters of the master and his family. Over this 
Pyle Street school, from 1738 to 1752, presided one 

'3 



H 



THOMAS CHATTERTON 



Thomas Chatterton, much given to conviviality and 
a little to music; on Sundays a singing man, or sub- 
chanter, in the Bristol Cathedral; on other days 
chiefly busied (outside of his school) at a club the 
main object of which seems to have been to pro- 
mote among its members a habit of excessive drink- 
ing. An ordinary man of ordinary stock, he was 
the first of his tribe in a long line of succession to 
depart from one calling. Father and son, the Chat- 
tertons had been sextons of St. Mary Redcliffe for 
one hundred and fifty years. In his case, the inno- 
vation was hardly of his own choosing. His father, 
John Chatterton, had survived in active discharge 
of the sexton's duties beyond the time when the son 
must seek a livelihood. He was thirty-five when 
the post became vacant, and being then set in other 
ways and uninclined toward the cold hie jacets of 
the dead, the place of his fathers passed to the pos- 
session of his sister's husband, Richard Phillips. 

The schoolmaster was of no scholarly habit; his 
mind was not thoughtful, nor, indeed, above medi- 
ocrity, and yet he was not destitute of taste and some 
crude fancy for literature. He knew something 
about music and even composed a catch for three 
voices, a kind of drinking song, said to be an ex- 
tremely dull performance. He sang well, he loved 
good roaring company at the ale house, he was care- 
less, plodding, unaspiring, and without a trait to 



DREAMS AND REALITIES 



r 5 



distinguish him from his roistering kind. In fact, a 
colorless person, even in his bibulous way of life not 
beyond the general custom of his age; for he was 
not quite a sot. He had to wife Sarah Young, a 
decent, plain woman, a farmer's daughter, and able 
to read and write, whom he had married in a near-by 
hamlet, to wit, Chipping-Sudbury, where she lived. 
She was less than half his age at the time, that is, 
she was sixteen and he thirty-five. He seemed to 
care little for her, and some observant cronies, seeing 
that he preferred the tavern to home and roisterers 
to his wife's company, wondered that he had wed at 
all. "To get a house-keeper," was his curt explana- 
tion of this mystery. They had one child, a little 
girl, Mary, not different from other children. A 
son, Giles Malpas Chatterton, named in honor of 
the builder of the Pyle Street schoolhouse, had died 
'in infancy. The schoolmaster was not of robust 
constitution, his habits made against health, and he 
died August 7, 1752, aged thirty-nine, of a cold 
and fever, due to exposure, probably when he was 
drunk. 

Three months after his death, that is to say, on 
November 20, 1752, in the rear room up-stairs in the 
ittle schoolhouse, where the windows look out upon 
he remnants of the garden, his third child, a son, 
-ame into this world, and was christened with his 
lame. 



1 6 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

The father had been shiftless and improvident; 
he left nothing but a scant handful of books and a 
memory none too fragrant, and the young widow 
was in straits for bread. There were four to care 
for; besides the children her mother was dependent 
upon her. A new master was appointed for the Pyle 
Street school, and the dwelling was his. As soon as 
might be the little family moved, going into a poor 
house up a dark court on RedclifFe hill, almost oppo- 
site the main portal of the church. Here Mrs. 
Chatterton settled into a grim struggle against star- 
vation, making her way by keeping a little day school 
for very young girls (a kind of forerunning kinder- 
garten), and by toiling industriously with her needle. 
She was a large, motherly soul, simple, unimagina- 
tive and affectionate. The little girls that at her 
knee learned their alphabets and reading became 
so fond of her that always afterward they looked 
upon her as on a foster mother, and when they grew 
up and were matrons they went back to visit and 
assist her in her age and heavy troubles. 

When the boy Thomas was five years old his 
mother sent him to the same Pyle Street school, in 
the house where he had been born. After a time the 
master returned him home with the information that 
he was too hopelessly dull to learn his letters. At 
home they thought him rather taciturn and strange 
than dull. He was a grave little man and a lonely, 



DREAMS AND REALITIES 17 

but handsome and of an expression intelligent 
though melancholy; slender and fair, with long light 
brown hair. His disposition puzzled his mother and 
might have puzzled those of more wit. He was at 
once exceedingly sensitive and exceedingly proud, 
affectionate and moody, and the oddest thing was 
that he had little interest in childish amusements, 
did not care much to play with other children, some- 
times wept for no apparent reason and was fond of 
solitude and most fond of St. Mary Redcliffe. 

All the threads of this story lead to St. Mary Red- 
cliffe. Thomas Chatterton had been born in its 
shadow, he dwelt across the street from it, his an- 
cestors for generations back had been employed in it, 
and now, his relative Richard Phillips, its sexton 
(sometimes called his uncle), was the only person 
outside of his own household in whom he manifested 
an affectionate interest. With Phillips he struck up 
a close friendship; they were much together, a strange 
and ill-assorted couple, for the sexton was elderly 
and the boy small for his age. Day after day they 
walked through the church or in the churchyard, 
the boy clinging to the old man's hand and hearing 
with insatiable appetite all the centuries' accumulated 
lore about the place with which he was strangely 
fascinated. It was the home of legends, time out of 
mind the sexton's inheritance, and it is the ancient 
privilege of legend handed down from generation to 



l$ THOMAS CHATTERTON 

generation to lose nothing on its way. Probably 
many of the stories of the church that passed from 
the gray-headed sexton to his little charge would 
have added a new and picturesque quality to plain 
history. 

The boy that was too dull to be taught his letters 
presently learned them without teaching, lying 
prone upon the floor of his mother's house with the 
cover of an old music book or a great black-letter 
Bible opened before him and tracing out the big 
blocks with his little fingers. His mother and his 
sister helping him, he quickly learned to read, and 
developed almost at once a passion for reading that 
fell not far short of a mania. He read everything in 
his mother's house and, hungering always for more, 
began to forage in the houses of the few neighbors 
that had books. 

In those days there was no fiction for children and 
precious little for adults. People satisfied the imagi- 
native longings by constructing what romance they 
could from the bony material of their own lives and 
environments, often hard enough, or went without. 
The boy could find little reading that did not partake 
of the juiceless life of the age, but upon all he fell as 
one starving ; some scraps of history, Spenser's Fae- 
rie Queene, the poems of Gray and of Pope, scien- 
tific treatises, the few and poor magazines of the day, 
whatever he could find. These were his playmates, 



DREAMS AND REALITIES 19 

comrades, confidants, and friends — books and the 
church, the beautiful church that from the first 
seemed to dominate all his thoughts and dreams. 
For hours together he would lie and gaze and brood 
upon it, stretched under a tree in the meadows that 
once lay to the southward and are now long obliter- 
ated by squares of ugly brick. Daily he roamed 
about it, sometimes with his friend the old sexton, 
sometimes alone, taking into his childish mind his- 
tory and legends of building and builders, and with 
infinite delight learning and repeating even the small- 
est details. There was endless store of material, 
the effigies, the moldering arms of William Penn's 
father, that doughty old warrior, the quaint inscrip- 
tions, the painted glass, the air of romance and 
mysticism. Stories were thick about him. There 
was the great whale bone about which the romancers 
had rewoven the old ballad tale of the Great Dun Cow 
and Guy of Warwick, the tale of Dunsmore and its 
weird creature. No child could see such a thing 
without asking what it meant, that huge yellow bone; 
no imaginative child could hear the story, that this 
was the very rib of the identical Great Cow slain in 
combat by the adventurous knight, without a stirring 
to long trains of fantastic dreamings. Who was Guy 
of Warwick and what other deeds of prowess did 
he ? And there was the crumbling image of the old 
Crusader, in all his arms, suggestive of chivalry and 



20 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

the Lion Heart. There was the alabaster effigy of 
Canynge, so unusual and beautiful, and there was 
that baffling, half-told, strange story of the epitaph. 
What boy could read that and not burn with curi- 
osity to know what it meant? "For his peace" — 
why for his peace ? And all that confiscated shipping 
the very names of which seemed to suggest queer old 
quays loaded with strange bales from the east, and 
queerly dressed sailors, pirates and perils, and the 
mystery of the seas when there was no America. And 
this Canynge — five times Mayor of Bristol, the 
richest man of his age, the munificent builder of the 
church that engrossed the boy's thoughts — what 
manner of man had he been ? There was his image, 
the fine, clear-cut face, the lofty forehead, the haunt- 
ing suggestion of pain and melancholy, and of high, 
resolute will; and then again in the glory of the magis- 
terial robes. So men were dressed like that in 
Canynge's time; richly and beautifully dressed like 
that! What a sight it must have been when such men 
walked in a procession! He had seen on Palm Sunday 
in the church that he loved and dreamed over and 
brooded upon the peculiar ceremony of Rush-bearing, 
the mayor of his own day walking at the head of the 
stately show, the civic dignitaries, the choir boys. 
What must it have been when men wore gorgeous 
robes like Canynge's, or went about the street clad 
in armor and bearing swords and pikes ? 



DREAMS AND REALITIES 21 

As he grew older and wandered farther in his lonely 
childish way, dreaming and musing, those streets 
seemed the perfect background of his fancies, 
the quaint, narrow old thoroughfares, lined with 
brown cross-timbered houses, whereof the upper 
stories projected successively farther over the side- 
walks. The very names were suggestive, Corn Street, 
Wine Street, and the like, being (as in some old 
continental cities like Lucerne and Leyden) relics of 
ancient market customs. Part of the old city wall 
still stood, crossing the city with a great arch whereon 
was, strangely placed, a little Gothic chapel, with 
painted windows, a silent tantalizing witness of by- 
gone days; and then going on up the hill with em- 
brasures for archers and slits for cross-bow men, 
things the sight of which would bear in upon any 
boy a whole romance. To reach this marvel he 
must cross a bridge, built up like the old Bridge of 
London with houses on each side of the way, a strange 
structure of the fourteenth century, and he knew 
that over it had trooped the soldiers of York and 
Lancaster, that its sleepy old arches had resounded 
with jingle of armor and clash of broadsword, that 
cross-bow bolts and long arrows had whistled about it. 
Not far from the bridge but away from the city wall 
he found the old Temple Church, its tower leaning 
over as if it were about to fall and yet never falling. 
Why should it lean over like that ? And was this 



22 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

the church built by the Templars, the gallant Cru- 
saders that had been to Palestine and fought with 
Richard ? Was this their visible work, had they gone 
in procession in and out of that door ? Then there 
was that strange place, St. Peter's Hospital, built 
in the age of Elizabeth, and St. Stephen's Church, 
curiously carved and richly ornamented, and St. 
Ewin's, the church that in the old brave times was 
Bristol Minster. His father had been a singing- 
man, his mother had told him, in the present Bristol 
Cathedral; here was the place that in the older days 
had been the center of the religious life of the town, 
the great authorities of the church had gathered there. 
And then there was that wonderful old Norman gate- 
way close by the Cathedral; what did that mean ? 
It was so large that people lived in it; the gateway 
to the old Abbey, he had been told. That must 
have been a great place when the monks thronged 
in and out and the cloisters still stood. 

But in all these wonders there was none like his 
own St. Mary RedclifFe, most beautiful of all the 
churches of Bristol, the home and goal of his fancies. 
The long nave, the arched transept, the silent aisles, 
the chancel filled with colored twilight, — he peopled 
these from the churchyard and the tombs until the 
persons of an imaginary drama became as real to him 
as anything he saw. Nothing is commoner among 
children that have the least imagination than these 



DREAMS AND REALITIES 23 

mental operations in which suppositious beings take 
part in a continuous action stretched over months or 
years, daily added to and revised until the narrative 
assumes the importance of verity. And whereas the 
average child has, in his daily play, a thousand ave- 
nues for the venting of his imaginings, feigning this or 
that with his playmates, feigning at going to school, 
or keeping house, or marching armies, this boy had 
but one. For him, a lonely unfriended waif, there 
was but one. The church was everything to him, 
playmate, comrade, friend; it took all the place of 
toys and playground; life for him seemed to begin 
there and end. There all the actors in his imaginary 
drama were connected with the church. There he 
gathered the fragments of the story of William 
Canynge, the gorgeous rebuilding of this sacred 
place, the beautiful house, the splendor and pomp 
of Canynge's state; and long meditations, long asso- 
ciations with the creatures of his brain, made them 
seem living to him. They would have seemed so, 
in a measure, to an ordinary boy, but this boy was 
not ordinary. He had from the beginning an abnor- 
mal imagination, beyond precedent, almost beyond 
belief; and in his solitary, cheerless way of life his 
natural gift had so grown upon him that the dead 
heroes he dreamed of walked and talked with him 
and became sharers of his daily experiences. Sitting 
alone in the transept hour after hour, the carved 



24 



THOMAS CHATTERTON 



image of Canynge before him, the tombstones of 
Master Coke and Master Brewer at his feet, the 
story slowly filled and possessed his mind, the ro- 
mance of the generous merchant prince, the author 
and begetter of that beauty he worshiped, the mind 
that had seen this wonderful place in his visions, 
perhaps, before a stone had been laid or a beam 
cut. He saw him in the glory of the Red Lodge, 
he saw the fleet of ships and piles of goods, he saw 
him building this church, he saw him mayor, at the 
head of great processions, the wise director of his 
city's affairs in troublous times; he saw him defy a 
king and abandon all his possessions rather than 
yield to tyrannical authority; and again in the quiet 
sanctuary of Westbury, secure amid his studies. And 
this great man was so generous and compassionate, 
no doubt in those days if there was a youth or even 
boy, no matter how poor he might be, that wished to 
do great things in the world and become famous, this 
man would help him. Being so rich he must have 
had plenty of books, and loving books he must have 
loved the men that wrote them. No doubt at the 
Red Lodge, with knights in armor and all things beau- 
tiful about, were scholars and writers, historians and 
poets like those of whom he had been reading. Every 
normal boy has a hero, flesh and blood, or one he 
has heard or read of. To this boy Canynge was 
more than hero, for this figure conjured from the 



DREAMS AND REALITIES 25 

past became the inseparable companion of his dreamy 
wanderings. 

Besides the church and Red Lodge there were 
other reminders of Canynge; at home one of the most 
familiar of daily sights was suggestively coupled 
with that name. Those chests in the Muniment 
Room at the top of North Porch, "Mr. Canynge's 
Coffer," as the sexton called one of them, and the 
others, contained parish deeds and records, and 
some years before it had been necessary to consult 
these documents. The chests were locked, the keys 
had been lost, and the chests being forced open with 
an ax were left unsecured when such papers as were 
needed had been taken out. The parchments with 
which the chests were filled became accessible, and 
being regarded as valueless were kicked about the 
Muniment Room, and got abroad. The boy's father 
had spied a use in them, and bringing home ample 
supplies from repeated excursions had made of them 
excellent covers for his pupils' books. The supply 
exceeded the demand; some old parchments still 
lay about the Chatterton house or were used by the 
prudent housewife for thread papers and so forth, all 
from Canynge's Coffer, all directly connected with 
his hero and suggesting the ideal life at Red Lodge. 
It would have been a dull boy that with such materials 
could not loose back his imagination to the days when 
processions of singing monks threaded the dim aisles, 



26 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

when knights jousted on the meadows close at hand, 
when York and Lancaster clashed in the streets of 
Bristol, when the now obliterated castle was a prison 
for the beaten Lancastrians, when some of them 
were put to death at the High Cross, when the city 
wall was manned with soldiers, when the Red Lodge 
was built in the midst of gardens sloping to the water, 
when stone by stone arose the airy fabric of the church, 
when Bristol was but a little seaport, its streets 
filled with strangely armed men, and its harbors 
with vessels of strange shapes, when it was smaller 
still, when it was a Saxon settlement commanded 
by a castle, when it was an outpost thrust into the 
hostile country by the fierce invaders, when it held 
the Danes at bay, when the huts of savage woad- 
painted Britons huddled about the Avon and on 
those banks the Druid priests had cut themselves 
with strange knives. Of all these things the boy 
had read and read, and here were the scenes where 
they had been and where now, to his imagination, 
wrapped in his dreams, the old actors returned to 
the old places, knights and monks and merchant 
prince lived again. 

In these years he was a strange boy, loving soli- 
tude and his own thoughts, mostly without boy play- 
mates or play, often silent and abstracted, sometimes 
speechless for so much as two days together, start- 
ling plain people (as were his mother's friends) by 



DREAMS AND REALITIES 27 

looking fixedly at them evidently without seeing 
them, absorbed in contemplation, shutting himself 
into the attic with a book, refusing food, and the like 
abnormalities. He had a disconcerting way of sitting 
in company with his eyes fixed on vacancy while the 
important affairs of the neighborhood, the price of 
butter and the like pertinent topics, were discussed 
about him, and then returning suddenly from a far 
journey to ask what had been talked about. He was 
sometimes so absent-minded and far gone in his 
abstraction that he did not hear when he was directly 
addressed. If he played with other children, which 
was seldom, he knew but one play and that was that 
he should be the master, ruler, or commander. From 
his earliest years other children seemed to yield in- 
stinctively to him, that was the odd thing, and never 
he yielded to another. He was ordinarily most truth- 
ful and obedient, but his mother and sister noted 
that he would fall sometimes into violent fits of weep- 
ing for no apparent cause and when pressed to know 
why he would be at a loss for an answer and say he 
had been beaten when there was no such matter. 
He seemed in a way to have had no youth, for he 
passed from infancy to a state where with mature 
gravity and knowledge he talked of abstruse sub- 
jects and bore himself with a dignity and presence 
that seem to have moved some observers to wonder 
and some to amusement. He was not always de- 



28 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

pressed; sometimes he was a cheerful and most enter- 
taining companion in the home circle, discoursing 
of the books he had read and explaining to his 
mother and sisters matters they had dreamed not 
of. But there was always latent in him a somber 
and even sorrowful regard that was above and con- 
tradicted his mirth. He grew handsomer with the 
years. His long hair curled and he had wonderful 
gray eyes that seemed to look clean through one; 
steady clear eyes, so marvelous that some persons 
were fascinated by them and thought they could 
see his soul in their depths. Few that observed 
them attentively failed to feel strangely attracted to 
the boy. His pride and his courage were alike 
extraordinary, and yet he was sensitive and sympa- 
thetic, and what was odd in one so self-reliant and so 
much alone, he was passionately devoted to his 
mother and sister. A more affectionate nature 
never lived, and all the wealth of it was poured 
out upon the little home circle in the poor dingy 
brick house up a nasty court in Bristol. His 
mother and his sister Mary were the idols of his heart 
and first among the dreams of his career was the 
dream of what he would do for them. For on 
another side of his nature he was already planning 
at times about his way in life, and he knew quite 
well that he was not as other boys were. 

He was often absent from home hours together and 



DREAMS AND REALITIES 29 

when sought for at meal time — for the painful 
British regularity was hard upon the good mother — 
they found him dreaming about in St. Mary Redcliffe 
(usually at the tomb of Canynge), or tucked away 
somewhere with a book. He had rather read than 
eat, a fact that caused Mrs. Chatterton much con- 
cern, as arguing something unwholesome in her off- 
spring. When found it was in disgrace that he was 
led to the table, for shall it not be criminal to be 
late to one's meals ? And sometimes much search 
was necessary and then punishment followed, the 
chastening that was held to be proper for a haughty 
spirit in youth. 

The wisdom that enables us to prescribe for the 
government of other people's children so much 
better than for our own was not withheld from Mrs. 
Chatterton's women friends. They had observed 
Thomas well and with great concern, and the con- 
census of their opinion was unfavorable. What he 
needed was severity and much of it. Doubtless with 
the best intentions they delivered this sage counsel 
upon the perplexed mother. There was indeed no 
need, as Mercutio says. In that sweet age, wherever 
children were the birch hung by the Bible and had 
at least equal honor. Parents had mind upon one 
scriptural command if no other and spared not. 
Whipping was a means of grace for children, and 
should a parent neglect his child's salvation ? On 



30 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

one occasion his mother, out of all patience with his 
unboyish ways, beat him with unusual severity. He 
endured without a murmur, but when it was over 
he remarked pathetically, "It is hard to be beaten 
for reading." 

What to do with such a son must have been a sore 
puzzle to the widow whose wit and income were 
alike small. For the children of the poor in those 
days the path was hard and usually led one way. 
Occasionally one born in poverty achieved by pro- 
digious endeavor some eminence, but the instances 
were dismally few. Such an exception, conspicuous 
in Bristol not long before, was still well remembered. 
Edward Colston, who, beginning obscurely, had made 
fame and fortune as a merchant, was a liberal bene- 
factor of his native city and some of his philanthropy 
had naturally followed the suggestion of his own 
ascent. That is to say, he had founded in 1708 a 
charity school wherein one hundred poor boys were 
to be trained for mercantile careers. To make 
their election sure they were to be provided for in 
every way, with lodging, clothing, food, as well as 
tuition. But the number was strictly limited, the 
pressure for admission very great, and the widow 
Chatterton must have felt overjoyed and thankful 
when, a vacancy occurring at Colston's, the inter- 
cession of friends and her own endeavors won the 
place for her boy when he was eight years old. 



DREAMS AND REALITIES 3 1 

At that time and for many years afterward there 
was in England no such institution as we should 
call a public school, and the generality of poor 
children got their smattering of knowledge in the 
private schools founded by the philanthropic, 
or in schools maintained in some instances by 
the parishes, or went without, as fate and chance 
might direct. In other words, the rich fared well 
enough, the poor shifted for themselves and for most 
part ill, for it was an ignorant age. Charity schools 
like Colston's were benevolent in design and oppres- 
sive in practise. The prevailing theory seemed to be 
that the schools were mills and the children therein 
raw material of an inferior nature sent upon the 
teachers for their sins, to be ground and hammered 
and beaten into shape. At Colston's the knowledge 
deemed essential for a mercantile career was put 
into the boys' heads by the genial method of brad- 
awl and hammer. The pupils lived like machines, 
arose early, toiled assiduously at arithmetic, pen- 
manship, compound interest, book-keeping and the 
like succulent matters and were released very late. 
On one day in the week a half-holiday was thought- 
fully provided; the rest of the time they were 
captives to a hideous system of manufacturing 
shopkeepers' assistants. 

And here begins the first of the mysteries we are 
to deal with. Nothing more repulsive than such a 



32 



THOMAS CHATTERTON 



1 



place could have been devised for the boy of dreams 
What had he to do with interest tables and the proper 
form of a bill of lading ? In all this he had no con- 
ceivable concern, he whose mind was rapt upon 
Canynge and chivalry, who dwelt perpetually in a 
land of strange visions. The whole institution filled 
his soul with loathing. He had no idea of being 
a shopkeeper or clerk, he cared nothing about 
weights and measures. What should the knights 
and ladies of his romance do with the computing of 
bales of cloth and hogsheads of tobacco ? What were 
to him the dull details and hard rectangles of com- 
mercial science ? In one day he passed from books 
and St. Mary RedclifFe and long ways of rhapsody 
and meditation to the atmosphere of bustling trade. 
And yet, pitchforked into this dreary treadmill, the 
amazing thing is that he not only accepted all its 
hard conditions and acquitted himself manfully and 
with scrupulous attention to his duties, but he 
dreamed on as before. His outward activities had 
undergone a violent change; the soul and the soul's 
real aims and life remained as before. He was a faith- 
ful student at Colston's, he learned his arithmetic, per- 
formed his sums, was taught to distinguish between 
troy weight and avoirdupois, to compute bills and 
master double-entry; he even managed to obey most 
of the rules and win the approval of his masters, but 
he still found time for the things he loved, he still 



DREAMS AND REALITIES 33 

read, dreamed, thought, and incessantly laid by stores 
of such knowledge as were never taught in a charity 
school. I do not know how he did it. The soul 
that would not have been crushed in that place must 
have been of extraordinary texture. Other boys have 
kept upon their chosen way in spite of discourage- 
ments and disadvantages, — Samuel Johnson, Na- 
poleon, Disraeli, Keats, many others; none of these 
was shut up in a commercial school at eight years of 
age and bound in by an iron system through which 
he must break with invincible determination to find 
the interests he had taken for his own. 

Yet he was no model boy and teacher's pet, he was 
no cad boy digging tirelessly at the dry roots of school- 
tasks to be patted upon the head by clergymen and 
shown to admiring visitors. There was nothing 
flaccid about Thomas Chatterton. He was a flesh 
and blood boy, able to laugh as well as to weep, 
having boy chums in the dormitory, hating some, 
at least, of his teachers with great heartiness, and see- 
ing quite through the others as keen-witted, normal 
boys often do; liked among his comrades, positive 
and successful enough to excite some envy, likely to 
break over the discipline when he saw fit and able at 
all times to take care of himself. A manly boy, still 
much preferring solitude and often afflicted with fits 
of depression; a boy with two sides to his nature as 
other boys have had and survived, sometimes exceed- 



34 



THOMAS CHATTERTON 



ingly sad and lonely and sometimes bright and a 
genial companion, but always self-possessed and 
sure of himself. 

But while with unchanged dreams he held his 
way at Colston's, two influences he encountered 
there wholly changed the current of his life. The 
first of these had relation to his brooding melan- 
choly. While he had good enough friends among 
the boys, one Baker of whom we shall hear further, 
and others, he was really intimate with none among 
them. The one friend in the place that he cared 
for was Thomas Phillips, who was not a pupil at 
all but an usher or assistant teacher. This must 
have been a rather remarkable young man. He 
studied literature, he wrote verses (whether ill or 
well the world will never know), he had an enthusiasm 
for self-culture, and with an unusual generosity he 
strove to inspire in his young charges the love of 
these intellectual pleasures; a gratuitous kindness 
remarkable in a place wholly given up to the Boun- 
derby theory of education. In one of his pupils his 
ministrations awoke an instantly responsive chord. 
From the time Thomas Phillips taught Chatterton 
to make verses the boy's intervals of gloomy depres- 
sion returned no more. The soul within had lacked 
the saving grace of expression; it was for expression 
that unconsciously he had been tearing his heart 
and beating the bars. With expression he found 



DREAMS AND REALITIES 35 

the secret of something like peace and he turned to 
verse-making as a tired man comes home. The way 
along which Phillips started him was at the first a 
beaten track; it was not long before he had made 
his own path and that through untried fields. 

The usher was a gentle youth and the boy loved 
and esteemed him, but even with Phillips he had 
no close confidences. Of the Grand Romance he 
revealed nothing, he would not tell even this good 
friend anything about his inner life with Canynge 
and Rowley and the nights at the Red Lodge. Grad- 
ually in his dreamings and wanderings the drama 
had taken shape and daily lived and moved before 
him. Somewhere in his interminable studies and 
searchings he had come upon Thomas Rowley. 
What he really knew of this mysterious figure, for 
how much of the eventual creation he found warrant 
or suggestion, we shall never divine. But in the 
Grand Romance Rowley became the hero. 

It was the oddest hero-making that ever entered 
a boy's mind. It made Rowley not a knight, a 
warrior, nor a performer of daring deeds, but a 
studious and gentle monk of St. John's Church. 
According to the romance, he and William Canynge 
had been schoolmates and had then cemented an 
j ideal friendship that lasted through their lives. When 
Canynge became rich he was able to gratify his taste 
for learning and the arts, and Rowley was his con- 



36 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

stant companion in such lofty pursuits. They drew 
to Red Lodge the best scholars of their region, all 
the wits, the poets, the writers. Canynge sent 
Rowley to the monasteries to collect ancient manu- 
scripts, drawings, and choice specimens of the works 
of early artists. Many of the manuscripts were in 
the Saxon tongue, and these Rowley, who was a very 
learned man, translated for his wealthy patron. He 
was an antiquarian also; he wrote profound treatises 
on the customs and literature of earlier times. As 
the boy's mind waxed apace and he himself found the 
long-sought vent for his creative energies, Rowley 
became a poet and a dramatist, urged thereto by the 
benevolent encouragement of his friend. He wrote 
poems of his own and he gathered and translated 
the poems of others, and in all he was supported and 
richly rewarded by Canynge. 

There were other persons in the drama. To 
the feasts of soul at the Red Lodge came John 
Carpenter, afterward Bishop of Winchester; John 
Iscamm, another priest; Sir Thybbot Gorges, 1 a 
nobleman of the neighborhood, and others, and 
their sessions must have been pleasant affairs, for 
all these could sound the lyre on occasion and were 
interested in literature and art. Of these gatherings 

1 Sir Theobold Gorges was a veritable character in Canynge 's time and lived 
at Wraxhall, near Bristol. He is mentioned in a deed of Canynge's to St. Mary 
Redcliffe Church, and it was in this document that Chatterton must have en- 
countered his name. 



DREAMS AND REALITIES 37 

Canynge and Rowley were the inspiring forces. 
Canynge often suggested subjects for Rowley's pen; 
in return the poet celebrated the goodness and 
benefactions of his illustrious patron; the relations 
between them were not the formal relations of priest 
and parishioner, but of two very dear and congenial 

friends. 

This is an outline of the story as Chatterton 
created it. To this framework he constantly added 
details. The consistence of the narrative was re- 
markable; it stretched over six or seven years of his 
life, and its developments at different periods all 
cohered with the outline. No doubt the dream so 
filled his lonely hours that it ceased to be a dream. 
All the characters in it and all their deeds and ways 
and sayings he came to know as well as he knew the 
deeds and ways of the people about him. He had 
odd little traits to tell of them, the things one accumu- 
lates from intimate observation. His real life was 
spent in their companionship; they were the ever- 
ready refuge from the world of boy-beaters and gross- 
minded persons that had no concern above profits. 
He mused and pondered over it, and into that region 
withdrew to dwell alone. 

Perhaps his reticence with Phillips was because he 
perceived that his friend was wholly modern and 
conventional in his tastes; perhaps it was because the 
other influence I have yet to tell of, as lamentable as 



38 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

Phillips's was beneficent, grew then upon him. We 
are far yet from understanding any part of the 
subtle chemistries by which the environment out 
of tune and harsh affects some temperaments. 
Colston's, an excellent school for salesmen, was 
perdition for a poet. The first plunge into the com- 
mercial spring struck a chill of abhorrence to the 
boy's very soul. He saw at once how little advan- 
tage lay there for him. With infinite joy he had 
hailed the idea of going to school, because he thought 
he should have unlimited opportunity to learn; but 
on an early holiday, when he was visiting home and 
his mother asked him about his prospects, he summed 
the whole situation in a word. "I could learn more 
at home," he said quietly, "they have not enough 
books there to teach me." It was even so and worse 
than he knew. The daily forced grinding of matter 
not merely uninteresting but utterly repellent and 
mentally indigestible was poisonous to him; the 
daily observation of the principles of business, the 
daily life in the atmosphere of gain, while it sharp- 
ened his wits and opened to him something of the 
nature of mankind, slowly induced a cynical and 
coldly humorous habit of mind directly at war with 
his finer spirit. 

As happens sometimes in cases of powerful intel- 
lect, two men grew up within him. On one side he 
was dreamy, affectionate, absorbed in romantic 



DREAMS AND REALITIES 39 

speculation, a citizen of airy cloud-land; on the 
other side a reasoning observer of his fellow men, 
disillusioned and skeptical. He learned early to 
look quite through the deeds of men, to weigh causes 
and motives, to distrust others and to draw farther 
within himself. Most ill things have some use. 
From this acquired cynicism he speedily learned to 
accept nothing for granted, to despise all conven- 
tional dogma and to reject as childish and absurd 
the surviving relics of feudalism. It is odd that 
one whose artistic sympathies were wholly medieval 
should on his active side go so far in advance of his 
age. If we are to cling to the theory that the normal 
man must be all of a piece, all progressive or all 
reactionary, all artist or all politician, we shall never 
solve this puzzle. The truth is that while he toiled 
at the tasks of Colston's the dreamer of Rowley 
slept and the other Chatterton looked about him 
with cynical disfavor; released from the bench and 
the chains the dreamer sprang up to life, the galley- 
oarsman was forgotten. 



Ill 

The Rift in the Clouds 

The galley-slave labored with exactitude and 
full, however reluctant, service, and the activities 
of the other nature were inexhaustible. We have 
no record of another mind more insatiable of effort. 
The regimen at Colston's left him little time for any 
other employment than his studies, and it must be 
borne in mind that his attention to his mother and 
sister never slackened. Yet here are some of the 
things he found time to do: he studied heraldry until 
he made himself an expert in the intricate science, 
until probably no man in England knew more of it or 
had readier or more understanding command of its 
terms; he wrote much poetry and some prose; he 
dug deep into the legends as well as the actual his- 
tory of Bristol; he studied the works of standard 
English poets and stored his memory with tales, 
scenes, songs, and lines from them; he read in his- 
tory, theology, medicine and what science was then 
available to the average investigator; gathered a 
good working knowledge of ancient arms and armor, 
of medieval life and manners, of old English bal- 
lads; studied the forms and shapes of early English 

4 o 



THE RIFT IN THE CLOUDS 41 

text; mastered the quaint penmanship of old parch- 
ments; learned much about music and something 
about drawing; read the newspapers; kept in the 
current of events; formed acquaintances outside the 
school (all adults); borrowed and read their books 
and controverted their opinions. I shall not pre- 
tend to say how in a school where the sessions began 
at seven in the morning and lasted until five in the 
afternoon, and every boy must be in bed at eight 
o'clock in the evening, these achievements were pos- 
sible, but there is the record; he did all these things. 
He had, to be sure, a mind that seemed to hunger 
and thirst after labor, a mind intolerant of repose; 
but such a mind highly developed in a grown man 
could hardly perform these prodigies, and this was 
a boy passing from his eighth to his sixteenth year. 

Colston's occupied a large and rather sightly 
building at the beginning of what is called St. Augus- 
tine's Back, a rise of land from the harbor, a branch 
of the Avon, to the College Green where the Cathe- 
dral stands. The harbor was in front, lengthwise, 
and in the perspective for many rods; at Colston's 
end was the old Drawbridge; along the water much 
shipping. The town was close about, mostly in 
front and towards the east or on the right of one 
facing as Colston's faced. In that direction was the 
fashionable Queen's Square, adorned in the center 
with a frightful equestrian statue of William III, 



4 2 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

the one discordant note in the antique harmony of 
the town, and near this square was the City Library, 
presently the object of the boy's particular attention, 
for the dearest quest of his life was books, books, 
always books. Where there are now thousands of 
books were not then scores. With extraordinary 
stupidity access to the few libraries was made as 
difficult as possible; it was thought well that those 
that God had ordained to a lowly walk of life 
should not have too much opportunity to become 
learned, perhaps lest they should be restless under 
the divine decree, perhaps with a reasonable fear 
that they might speedily outstrip their betters. A 
few persons of means gathered about them small 
collections of precious volumes and to such persons 
in Bristol the boy was irresistibly attracted. 

One of these was destined to exert upon all the 
rest of his life a malignant influence. Very close to 
Colston's on St. Augustine's Back was then dwelling 
William Barrett, a surgeon of considerable note in 
Bristol and possessed of some vestiges of taste for 
literature and antiquities. He was then and had 
been for years engaged in a task that is one of the 
monuments of wasted human industry. With in- 
conceivable pains and labor he was writing a huge 
history of Bristol, a work so full of errors and inac- 
curacies that it is worthless as anythingbut a curiosity. 
He was a cold, calculating person, of somewhat 






THE RIFT IN THE CLOUDS 43 

slender intellect and Much centered in himself and 
his great project, but the owner of a small library. 
The boy seemed to scent books as bees scent honey; 
in some way he managed to make the surgeon's 
acquaintance and eventually to extract books from 
him. After a time, for reasons of his own, Barrett 
chose to encourage the boy's visits and the two 
became frequent companions. 

The chief recourse of those that had no books of 
their own nor admission to the few collections mis- 
called "public" was then to such of the booksellers 
as maintained circulating libraries. Bristol had some 
of these; poor enough, no doubt, but still contain- 
ing books, books, the books for which the poor soul 
strove like one fighting for air in a dungeon. He 
had a small allowance of pocket-money, a few pennies 
weekly, and as a rule these went straight to the cir- 
culating libraries. Not always, for he had one other 
extravagance, and though it arose from the strongest 
trait in his character, it has been overlooked by most 
of his biographers. It is quite true that this boy 
that has been so bitterly assailed had one wasteful 
habit. The Drawbridge in front of Colston's was 
often thronged with beggars and whenever he passed 
he emptied his pockets among them. Even if he 
had started to the circulating library to get some of his 
beloved books, at the sight of a beggar he surrendered 
his last penny and sacrificed his dearest joy. He was 



44 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

himself almost as poor as any other person in Bristol 
he was himself on the sharp edge of utmost penury, 
and he gave everything he had, everything even to 
his books. A kinder heart never beat; at any si<mt 
of distress he ran with tears and cries of tenderness 
to the help. His mother had a friend, a Mrs. Edkins, 
who had been in her girlhood a pupil of the elder 
Chatterton's, a warm-hearted, gentle and simple soul, 
to whom all the Chattertons were dear. She was 
fond of walking and talking with Thomas, albeit 
she probably understood little of his sayings. Though 
poor enough herself, being of the same humble class 
to which the boy belonged, she sometimes had a 
little money. Often when they were abroad to- 
gether, and he had given all his own pennies to some 
cripple, he would beg her to further his charities. 
"If you give to the cripple you are giving to me," 
he told her. When she had intended to round 
their excursion with a treat of gingerbread or some 
such rare delicacy, she found herself with empty 
pocket. Chatterton had insisted that she should give 
all to the beggars. The moralists have dwelt much 
upon the fact that to an arrogant pewterer this boy 
gave a fictitious heraldry. They have not mentioned 
the other fact that, underfed and poor and joyless 
himself, he gave bread to the starving. Charity seems 
to cover all sins but those of the Literary Forger. 
I have no idea how much his little philanthropies 



THE RIFT IN THE CLOUDS 45 

and the kindness of his young heart were known, but 
possibly they had been observed by one man in 
Bristol of whom, I should say, we have too little 
information. One of the circulating libraries in 
Bristol was kept by a bookseller named Goodal, 
near a place with the euphonious name of the Cider 
House Passage. To this shop Chatterton was a fre- 
quent visitor. Sometimes, after he had shared his 
book-money with his friends the beggars, he would 
still stroll on to Goodal's shop to feast his eyes on 
the books now beyond his reach, and Goodal 
would take pity on him and put a book under his 
arm and tell him to run home and not to mind about 
the fee if he did not have it. In this bitter story of 
cruelty and neglect you will find few instances where 
anybody was kind to this boy. Perhaps it is well 
to make the most of those you do find. 

Other persons than the bookseller might have 
thought him worth attention and for other reasons 
than his compassionate ways. For his fine face, for 
one; and then the peculiar uniform of Colston's 
school notably became him, the dark blue coat, long 
and full-skirted, the dark blue knee-breeches, yellow 
silk stockings, low shoes with buckles, round flat 
blue hat with a gathered brim. You may see boys 
in the like garb threading the streets of Bristol now, 1 

1 St. Elizabeth's Hospital boys. The costume is almost identical with the old- 
time Colston uniform. 



4-6 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

and if you do you will turn to look at them. And 
this boy had that manly bearing and quiet easy ad- 
dress that is rare in boys and immensely engaging 
when you do find it. He had no shyness; his manner 
towards his elders was always as of one at ease and 
confident. Some persons are without the observing 
faculty and cannot tell five minutes afterward whether 
one that has spoken to them was commonplace or 
extraordinary; but wherever was a ready understand- 
ing Thomas Chatterton was noted and wondered 
over, particularly for those strange eyes of his. 
Some of his acquaintances, the surgeon Barrett for 
one, used to find entertainment in arousing his anger 
to see his eyes burn, a witless device that seems a 
kind of grown-up edition of the infant and the watch. 
When he was aroused the gray eyes sparkled and 
glowed and seemed to take fire from within. 

His Saturday half-holidays from twelve to seven 
he spent at his mother's house; at seven the doors 
of Colston's closed upon him. In these hours at 
home he was often busy in the garret, which he had 
erected into a study and workshop. There he took 
his books and some other things. He kept this den 
locked, carried the key himself and would allow no 
intrusion upon his privacy. His business in life was 
to work. He had made for himself certain wise 
adages with which he regaled his mother when that 
good woman attempted to remonstrate with him 



THE RIFT IN THE CLOUDS 47 

about his abnormal habits of study and his unboyish 
disregard of the dinner hour. One was that "God 
had sent his creatures into the world with arms long 
enough to reach anything if they chose to be at the 
trouble." Another about eating animal food was that 
he had a work to do and must not make himself duller 
than God had made him. The poor woman, like 
King Claudius, could make nothing of these answers; 
the words were not hers. The boy was so affectionate 
and kindly that she could think no ill of him, but his 
way of life was beyond her conception and her gossips'. 
Later in life Chatterton became an undisguised 
skeptic as to all revealed religion, but in his early 
years he was rather devout. He was confirmed when 
he was ten years old, and the ceremony made a deep 
impression upon a mind susceptible to all things 
beautiful and interested in all things ritualistic. He 
went home from the church to talk to his sister about 
it and tell her the thoughts it aroused in him. While 
the mood remained he wrote the earliest of his poems 
of which we have knowledge, for one of the deplor- 
able as well as the strange features of this story is 
that so many of its memorials were allowed to perish. 
Probably he had written many poems before this, as 
certainly he wrote many after it, that have vanished 
from the eyes of man. He was ten years old, Novem- 
ber 20, 1762, and on January 8, 1763, this poem 
of his appeared in Felix Farley's Bristol Journal: 



4 8 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

ON THE LAST EPIPHANY, OR CHRIST COMING TO 
JUDGMENT 

Behold! just coming from above, 
The judge, with majesty and love! 
The sky divides, and rolls away, 
T'admit Him through the realms of day! 
The sun, astonished, hides its face, 
The moon and stars with wonder gaze 
At Jesu's bright superior rays! 
Dread lightnings flash, and thunders roar, 
And shake the earth and briny shore; 
The trumpet sounds at heaven's command, 
And pierceth through the sea and land; 
The dead in each now hear the voice, 
The sinners fear and saints rejoice; 
For now the awful hour is come, 
When every tenant of the tomb 
Must rise, and take his everlasting doom. 

His next poem of which we have record, "A Hymn 
for Christmas Day," written in the same year, 1763, 
is an amazing composition for a boy ten or eleven 
years old, showing thought and command of expres- 
sion, and what is more significant, the sense of music. 
It begins: 

Almighty Framer of the Skies! 
O let our pure devotion rise, 

Like incense in Thy sight! 
Wrapt in impenetrable shade 
The texture of our souls was made 

Till Thy command gave light. 



THE RIFT IN THE CLOUDS 49 

The sun of glory gleamed, the ray 
Refined the darkness into day, 

And bid the vapors fly: 
Impelled by His eternal love, 
He left His palaces above 

To cheer our gloomy sky, etc. 

It is strange that a boy of such habitual gravity of 
thought should have also been the possessor of an 
exquisite sense of humor and a light touch on comic 
fancy. Not long after his religious hymns appeared 
he tried his hand at humorous verse, with other 
things, and produced the beginning of a witty story 
called "Sly Dick," a tale of a thief in which, if it had 
been completed, he probably purposed some satire. 
The next of his preserved writings is "Apostate Will," 
written when he was eleven years and five months old. 
The subject is a man that had turned to Methodism 
and back to the Established Church as advantage 
dictated, a theme that suited the boy's bent of mind 
for he had then traveled some distance towards 
skepticism. Thus the verses begin: 

In days of old, when Wesley's power 
Gathered new strength by every hour; 
Apostate Will, just sunk in trade, 
Resolved his bargain should be made; 
Then straight to Wesley he repairs, 
And puts on grave and solemn airs, etc. 



5° 



THOMAS CHATTERTON 



I quote a little of it merely to show the lad's pecu- 
liar ease in versification and some of the effects that 
Colston's had already wrought upon him, a contempt 
for "trade," for instance. It has been generally 
overlooked that the influence of the school was 
doubtless responsible for his earliest distaste for 
religion. Among the iron-bound rules of the insti- 
tution were severe requirements about worship. 
Colston had been not less than a fanatic on the sub- 
ject; not only was his school to be conducted by men 
of the extremest type of his own faith, but no boy 
could be admitted that was tainted anywhere with 
the breath of abhorred dissent, and minute instruc- 
tions were left as to the kind and quantity of re- 
ligious faith to be inculcated. Chatterton had much 
of the rebel in him; he revolted at the idea of being 
taken by the throat and crammed with dogma, and 
naturally he sprang away to the other extreme. 

The origin of one of his poems of this period 
shows how keenly he observed current events and 
how sharp were the powers of sarcasm at his com- 
mand. One Joseph Thomas, a brickmaker, was 
then churchwarden of St. Mary RedclifTe. In an 
inspiration of what was regarded as excessive thrift 
he ordered that the ground in the churchyard should 
be leveled off, the grave mounds cut down, and the 
resulting debris carted off", to his works (as Bristol 
believed) to be made into bricks. The towns- 



THE RIFT IN THE CLOUDS " 51 

people were not unduly sensitive; they had allowed 
the Dean of the Cathedral to demolish the old High 
Cross in College Green, a beautiful relic of antiquity; 
but about the sordid meanness of the churchwarden's 
performance there was something that stung. An 
outcry was made, people protested, the outraged 
feelings found vent in the Englishman's ready resort, 
the agony column of his nearest newspaper. Bristol 
had not in years been so moved. Thomas, a head- 
strong man, was not to be diverted from his purpose 
and the work went on to the scandal and wrath of 
the town. In the midst of the discussion this boy 
of the charity school sprang to the front with a string 
of satirical verses, fiercely assailing and lampooning 
Thomas and turning upon him a bitter irony by 
representing him, extravagantly, no doubt, as tor- 
tured by conscience. In his mania for destruction, 
the churchwarden, following the vile example of the 
Dean, had ordered a cross in the churchyard to be 
removed, a merely wanton vandalism that had aug- 
mented his other offenses, and the verses picture 
him dreaming and gloating over this sacrilege when 
the apparition of conscience appears to torment 
him. Under the title of "The Churchwarden and 
the Apparition," these verses were printed in Felix 
Farley's Bristol Journal, January 7, 1764, Chat- 
terton then being twelve years old. Like all his 
early work they were printed anonymously, and no 



52 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

one in Bristol would have been more astonished 
than the editor of that fashionable periodical to find 
that their author was a little Colston's boy. In the 
same newspaper appeared a prose philippic on the 
same subject, and a certain peculiar note of biting 
satire as well as other internal evidence identifies 
this also as Chatterton's work. No one else felt 
so keenly about the desecration. The churchwarden 
struck at his very heart when he touched St. Mary 
RedclifFe. 

It was so about all things great or small connected 
with that dear home of his dreams, and presently 
one of those trifling incidents that turn the currents 
of life arose from this feeling to the shaping of a new 
activity and one destined to cause him infinite in- 
jury before the unthinking. At Colston's the parch- 
ments from the old Muniment Room had long passed 
from his mind; but being at home one Saturday after- 
noon he saw his mother winding thread upon an 
odd-looking slip of paper and asked about it. The 
answer recalled the whole story of Canynge's Coffer, 
the abstracted parchments and the handy book- 
covers. He hesitated not to denounce his father's 
action as sacrilegious and to declare that nothing old 
and from the church should be put to base uses. 
Thereupon he desired to see more of the parchments, 
and finding them covered with ancient writing fell 
to studying them. In the end he gathered all that 



THE RIFT IN THE CLOUDS 53 

were left in the house, locked them in his garret den 
and gave orders concerning them in the manner be- 
fitting a young gentleman of twelve that was head 
of a household. Before this he had often been busy 
of a Saturday afternoon with his drawings and color- 
ings. He had a great lump of ocher, some lamp- 
black and some lead-powder, and with these he 
worked away, drawing armorial bearings and other 
devices and coloring them after his fancy, for he 
had a natural taste for design. From these employ- 
ments he emerged grimy with lampblack and stained 
with ocher, but happy. Sometimes he was so much 
absorbed in his work that he resolutely declined to 
come down to supper and trudged away back to 
Colston's that night, hungry but contented. Once 
he found that having left out of his room his precious 
bottle of lead-powder, the stuff had been used to 
polish a stove, and at that he flew into a violent rage, 
for it was attacking him on two sides, his slender 
means and his respect for his art. Mainly he drew 
designs for imaginary castles, ancient bridges and 
medieval costumes, coloring them; but some time 
after the incident about the parchments he became 
busier than ever with his pigments and in other 
ways. 

He was busier also with his pen and more absorbed 
in his dreams; he had far greater things in mind now 
than "Apostate Will" and "The Churchwarden," 



54 



THOMAS CHATTERTON 



he had things to which all he had done was nothing; 
he had the expression and artistic flowering of his 
passionate love for the past wherein he truly dwelt, 
the expression of Canynge, Rowley, and St. Mary 
Redcliffe, his inseparable companions of old time. 
Within him the Grand Romance was taking artistic 
shape, as slowly he forged its eventual form. 

It was inevitable that such a spirit, so utterly pos- 
sessed of such a story, living in it and brooding upon 
it, should some day leave a record of it. Probably 
he had little volition in the matter; the artist can 
hardly choose, and this was the high aspiring and 
burning soul of an artist. With all the relics of 
Canynge about him, with the church, the effigies, 
the legends that pertained to the sexton's office, the 
remnant of the Red Lodge, the spire of St. John's 
Church, with these insistent reminders of truth and 
fiction, feigned images that had been the companions 
of his childhood grew upon him as verities, and their 
deeds took on additional substance. By so much as 
the Bristol of his own day seemed sordid and mean, by 
so much as the school he loathed was narrow and 
dull, the contrast of this imaginary life in a golden 
age and the contrast of its warm and pleasing figures 
laid the stronger hold upon his imagination. 

In his long lonely rambles, in his long nights in the 
dormitory (for he slept little), persons and events 
and at last the whole story had been formulated. 



THE RIFT IN THE CLOUDS 55 

And being now deep in his poetic studies, feeling and 
knowing exultantly in every fiber that he was a poet, 
confident of his calling, expert in the characters of 
ancient writing, a student of heraldry and history, 
it seemed to him that he knew the poetry that Rowley 
had made, and he turned back to his old authors, to 
Spenser and to Chaucer and to an ancient dictionary, 
to see how the words Rowley had used would look. 
And having then the spirit and being consumed by 
the feeling of his creation, presently he began to 
carve exquisite poetry that he wrote as he thought 
Rowley might have written. And upon such work, 
forming on the whole the most extraordinary body 
of verse in our language, he was then, at the age of 
twelve years or so, busily engaged. A hard-driven 
charity school boy, crammed with commerce nine 
hours a day, set down in an environment that was 
abhorrent to him, whipped by the head-master (a 
blockish person named Warner) for wasting his 
time in such nonsense as poetry, he was steadily 
building the Rowley fabric into the shape that was 
presently to amaze the world. 

The loneliest soul that has walked these ways of 
ours, there was in all the world not one person to 
whom he could impart these transports. Sym- 
pathy is as much as air a necessity of life. He was 
starved for the lack of it. As a little boy he had 
been whipped for reading and hunted with reproaches 



56 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

from his dreaming place by Canynge's tomb. And 
now he had been beaten again for practising his 
elected art. His soul told him that what had been 
called his offenses were morals; his punishments 
had been the irradicable crimes. The world had 
been bitter to him. Both from experience and by 
infallible instinct he understood what cold jeers and 
rude jests, worse than blows, would beat upon him 
at any mention of his Rowley dreams. He crept 
away, as some hurt animals creep, into holes and 
lonely corners and shared his rapture of creation 
with Canynge and Rowley, for these would not laugh 
nor sneer, these had no wounds nor blows to give. 
And for all else he was alone. There was not one 
soul to give him counsel or help; if he had been 
the final being on a dying planet he could not have 
been a more solitary figure. 

For what he did next the wise world has long cruci- 
fied him; it is so easy to condemn for one error, so 
hard to remember that every evil dangles on a long 
chain of evil cause and evil effect. Was it so great 
a matter, and he twelve years old, fatherless and un- 
friended ? He had sung with the ineffable joy of the 
artist, soaring among the clouds, a companion of 
stars and winds, songs that were for him the em- 
bodiment of the soul of his Rowley and of his own. 
And having done this, and remembering the parch- 
ments in his mother's house and the antique writing, 



THE RIFT IN THE CLOUDS 57 

it occurred to him that Rowley's songs should have 
a setting of their own times. He therefore cleaned 
some of the parchments, and in the antique pen- 
manship that he had studied and learned to imi- 
tate he copied some of the poems thereon. 

It was with these employments that he was now 
chiefly concerned on his half-holidays in his garret 
study. His mother's wonder grew upon her. Other 
boys were not like this, but played or gathered about 
and delighted in noise. The strangeness of it 
alarmed her; good soul, to be unusual was clearly 
evil, and she set herself to find out what all this meant. 
It was too late, the boy had drawn too far within 
himself. Once she undertook to destroy a piece 
of the parchment, but he raised so violent an outcry 
that she was affrighted and stopped. Once he stood 
upon a piece of his work to prevent her from taking 
it. In the end she gave up the attempt and left him 
to his own devices, being doubtless wise therein and 
the gainer; for thereafter she and Mary knew more 
than any other person about his work; and yet these, 
you will understand, were not confidants to advise 
or guide him. They gained, in truth, but a new 
assurance that Thomas was wonderfully active and 
able and loved them devotedly. 

But he did at times exhibit some fruits of his 
labors. One of the boys at Colston's, himself 
afterward a stumbling follower of the Muses and 



58 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

exceedingly jealous of his fellow-student, was James 
Thistlethwaite. He likewise, and under the in- 
spiration of Phillips, had developed other interests 
than the multiplication table. One day in July, 
1764, a holiday it was, Thistlethwaite, going down 
Horse Street, near the schoolhouse, encountered 
Chatterton going up. They were not very friendly. 
Thistlethwaite was a priggish sort of boy, with a 
hard angular mind, and Chatterton had an antipathy 
to prigs. They stopped and talked, nevertheless, 
and Chatterton announced that he had a piece of 
news. He had been examining some old parch- 
ments taken from St. Mary Redcliffe and had found 
among them an ancient poem. Thistlethwaite natu- 
rally wished to see it. Chatterton said he had given 
it to Phillips, the usher. Soon afterward Thistle- 
thwaite meets Phillips, the usher, and asks him about 
this wonder of a by-gone age. Phillips produces it 
and there it is, a little piece of yellowish parchment, 
much stained as if by age, and on it some strange 
old writing, very small and dim. Phillips has been 
tracing the letters over with his pen to make them 
clearer. Bit by bit he has made out some words, 
but others still baffle him. Thistlethwaite sits 
down with him and together they labor. It is all too 
much for Thistlethwaite's poor head, but he can see 
it is poetry, although it is written in the manner of 
prose, that is without capitals and without division 



THE RIFT IN THE CLOUDS 59 

into lines. What Phillips deciphered stuck in 
Thistlethwaite's memory, and years afterward he 
recognized the whole poem when he saw it worked 
out and in print. It was a kind of eclogue called 
"Elinoure and Juga," and this was its first stanza 
as it read when it had been recast into lines: 

Onne Ruddeborne bank twa pynynge Maydens sate, 
Theire teares faste dryppeynge to the waterre cleere; 
Echone bementynge for her absente mate, 
Who atte Seyncte Albonns shouke the morthynge speare. 
The nottebrowne Elinoure to Juga fayre 
Dydde speke acroole, wythe languishment of eyne, 
Lyche droppes of pearlie dew lemed the quyvryng brine, etc. 

A little labor would have made this into excellent 
verse, as follows: 

On Rudborne bank two pining maidens sat, 
Their tears fast dripping to the water clear, 
Each one lamenting for her absent mate, 
Who at Saint Albans shook the murdering spear. 
The nutbrowne Elinor to Juga fair 
Held crooning plaint with heavy cast-down eyne; 
Like drops of pearly dew gleamed the quivering brine, etc. 

But neither Phillips nor Thistlethwaite was con- 
cerned in the poetic significance of the composition, 
and only Phillips cared about it even as a curiosity. 
The seven stanzas of the poem recited the alternate 
complaints of the maidens whose lovers were fighting 



60 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

in the War of the Roses, all spirited and justly 
framed. Phillips seems to have made little of it. 

This was the first glimpse we have of Chatterton's 
secret labors and indicates that he already had his 
romance well in hand and had found what seemed 
to him from his readings and from probability to be 
the language in which Rowley wrote. He was then 
really less than twelve years of age. The world 
cherishes stories of precocious achievements by many 
of its accepted favorites, by Pope, Macaulay, Keats, 
Bryant, Shelley; among them all is no fellow to this. 



IV 

The Trade of a Scrivener 

He was almost seven years at Colston's, continuing 
vigorously in his self-appointed tasks, as in those 
imposed upon him, reading everything in the shape 
of a book he could lay hands upon and observing 
with a discerning eye and a singularly retentive 
memory the ways of men and tides of events. His 
career in the school seems to have been to the satis- 
faction of the teachers, although he had no love for 
the head-master, who had beaten him for writing 
poetry, and none for the institution. In July, 1767, 
he being then fourteen years and eight months old, 
the school authorities held him to be sufficiently 
trained to be articled, and he was accordingly ap- 
prenticed to John Lambert, a dry, formal lawyer, of 
Bristol, to learn the trade of a lawyer's scrivener. 
Lambert paid to the trustees a premium often pounds. 
The articles provided that he should feed, lodge 
and clothe his apprentice; Mrs. Chatterton was to 
see to her son's mending. 

At Lambert's, at first in St. John's Steps, and later 

in Corn Street, in an old house not long ago demolished, 

61 



62 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

Chatterton took up his quarters, feeling somewhat 
aggrieved because Lambert's mother, old, exacting, 
and of a mind to be a domestic tyrant, made him 
eat in the kitchen and sleep with the foot-boy. His 
work was of the easiest. He had little to do but to 
keep the office in order, to occupy it in Lambert's 
absence and to copy precedents. From eight to ten 
every evening was time he had to himself. The 
leisure his scanty employment gave him he turned 
to his studies and to his poetry. Of these pursuits 
Lambert heartily disapproved, favoring his appren- 
tice with stern lectures against idleness and folly 
(of which he conceived the writing of poetry to be a 
conspicuous example), and once proceeding to even 
more violent reproof. Chatterton cherished a bitter 
resentment against Head-master Warner, who had 
beaten him for practising his dearest employments, 
and having now leisure and opportunity, he wrote 
out his candid opinion of his late preceptor and sent 
it to him. The literature of caustic abuse is prob- 
ably the poorer by the disappearance of this effusion, 
for judging by the results it must have been of a 
powerful and searching eloquence. Chatterton hav- 
ing abstained from signing his name to the document, 
Warner, who seems to have been of a breadth and 
dignity of mind then not uncommon in men of his 
profession, set in motion much ponderous machinery 
to discover his correspondent; and when by tracing 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 63 

the kind of paper used this was found to be a boy 
not fifteen years of age, Lambert met the require- 
ments of the crime by beating him again. From 
these beatings and repressions there came forth 
finally a deception at which many sage moralists 
have been pleased to wonder, being apparently of 
the belief that from the thistles of tyranny and bru- 
tality should come the figs of a sweet and child-like 
innocence. This boy was born with an abnormally 
sensitive soul, a mind that soared above his sur- 
roundings, and with the artist's irrepressible passion 
for expression. But when that passion struggled up 
and took the only shape possible for his genius, and 
when the aspiring soul had its own flowerage of 
song, it earned only the cudgel. He was a mere slip 
of a lad, thin from long fasting and sleeplessness (for 
his way of living was like an anchorite's), undersized 
and sensitive, and when the surging fire within him 
burst forth, men beat him for it. They beat him 
yet. In Bristol the trouble was that he wrote poetry 
and let it be known; since then he has been con- 
demned because he wrote poetry and kept it secret. 
Even the sympathetic among the commentators 
have seemed to think that the cudgel should breed 
candor and beatings inculcate frankness. He 
was a child, without experience, without a close 
friend or adviser, and it is held, apparently, that 
the injustice he suffered and the hardships of his 



64 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

incongruous position he should have borne with the 
calm resignation of an aged saint. 

He knew perfectly well in that strange strong 
mind of his that grown men had no right to beat 
him for writing poetry. He knew perfectly well 
that he was different from the people about him, that 
he had other ideals of life and other aims, that 
he knew more than most adults, that his mental 
processes were surer and quicker. He could think 
and most of them could not. But they had the 
stronger physical force and could beat him fct will 
and make him waste his precious hours in grinding 
the sand of commercial arithmetic and copying the 
dull lawyer's dull precedents. And they would not 
see that he could do anything else, that there was 
in him the fire of great achievement. From the 
seeds of such conditions the growth that came is 
the last that should astonish reasonable men. 

He had, not long after the incident of the Warner 
letter, a chance to amuse himself at the expense of 
his tormentors, and availed of it in a way quite 
natural to the consciously superior mind. The prin- 
cipal crossing in the harbor is and has been for cen- 
turies known as " Bristol Bridge." When Chatterton 
was born this- was that ancient stone structure 
having houses on each side to which I have before 
referred. Age having impaired the old bridge the 
authorities in 1768 replaced it. The new bridge 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 65 

was opened to foot passengers in September and 
completed two months later. While the subject still 
occupied the minds of the citizens, those that read 
Felix Farley's Bristol Journal, were astonished one 
day to find printed there what purported to be 
an authentic account, taken from an ancient manu- 
script, of the ceremonies that three hundred years 
before had marked the opening of the old bridge. 
The account, which would make about one third of a 
column in a modern newspaper, was most circum- 
stantial and full of minute detail. It was written 
in what was accepted by the scholarship of that 
day as veritable old English. 

"On Fridaie," it began, "was the time fixed for 
passing the newe Brydge: Aboute the time of 
the tollynge the tenth Clock, Master Greggorie 
Dalbenye mounted on a Fergreyne Horse, enformed 
Master Mayor all thyngs were prepared; whan two 
Beadils want fyrst streyng fresh stre, next came a 
manne dressed up as follows — Hose of goatskyn, 
crinepart outwards, Doublet and Waystcoat also, 
over which a white Robe without sleeves, much like 
an albe, but not so longe, reeching but to his Lends: a 
Girdle of Azure over his left shoulder, rechde also 
to his Lends on the ryght, and doubled back to his 
Left, bucklyng with a Gouldin Buckel, dangled to 
his Knee; thereby representyng a Saxon Elderman. — 
In his hande he bare a shield, the maystrie of Grille a 



66 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

Brogton, who paincted the same, representyng Saincte 
Warburgh crossynge the Ford. Then a mickle 
strong Manne, in Armour, carried a huge anlace; 
after whom came Six Claryons and Six Minstrels, 
who sang the Song of Saincte Warburgh; then came 
Master Maior, mounted on a white Horse, dight 
with sable trappyngs, wrought about by the Nunnes 
of Saincte Kenna, with Gould and Silver; his Hayr 
brayded with Ribbons, and a Chaperon, with the 
auntient arms of Brystowe fastende on his forehead. 
Master Maior bare in his Hande a gouldin Rodde, 
and a congean squier bare in his Hande, his Helmet, 
waulking by the Syde of the Horse: than came the 
Eldermen and Cittie Broders mounted on Sable 
Horses, dyght with white trappyngs an Plumes, and 
scarlet copes and Chapeous, having thereon Sable 
Plumes; after them, the Preests and Freeres, Parysh, 
Mendicaunt and Seculor, some syngyng Saincte 
Warburgh's song, others soundyng clarions thereto, 
and others some Citrailles. In thilk manner reechyng 
the Brydge, the Manne with the Anlace stode on the 
fyrst Top of a Mound, yreed in the midst of the 
Bridge; then want up the Manne with the Sheelde, 
after him the Minstrels and Clarions. And then 
the Preestes and Freeres, all in white Albs, makyng 
a most goodlie Shewe; the Maior and Eldermen 
standyng round, theie sang, with the sound of Clari- 
ons, the Song of Saincte Baldwyn; which beyng done, 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 67 

the Manne on the Top threwe with greet myght 
his Anlace into the see, and the Clarions sounded 
an auntiant Charge and Forloyn: Then theie sang 
againe the songe of Saincte Warburgh, and proceeded 
up Chrysts hill, to the cross, where a Latin Sermon 
was preeched by Ralph de Blundeville. And with 
sound of Clarion theie agayne went to the Brydge, 
and there dined, spendyng the rest of the daie in 
Sportes and Plaies, the Freers of Saincte Augustine 
doeyng the Plaie of the Knyghtes of Bristowe, and 
makynge a great fire at night on Kynwulph Hyll." 

The intellectual life of Bristol at that day was not 
remarkable, but there were some persons sufficiently 
interested in antiquities to be aroused to curiosity 
by this extraordinary document, and inquiries were 
set on foot to discover the original. It appeared 
that the publisher of the "Journal held no knowl- 
edge of it, pursuing a pleasing practise of printing 
what was sent to him and asking no questions. 
The signature to the note that accompanied the ac- 
count was "Dunhelmus Bristoliensis," which threw 
no light on the mystery. For some weeks the aroused 
antiquarians of Bristol were baffled in their search. 
Then a slender youth entering the Journal office 
with a communication to be published was recog- 
nized by some one there as the purveyor of the 
"Dunhelmus Bristoliensis" manuscript and was 
detained and questioned. Being but a lad and this 



68 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

being Bristol, where, it seems, boys were but trouble- 
some beasts, his examiners went at him hammer 
and tongs with threats and stern aspect. Where- 
upon the boy drew himself up haughtily, turned upon 
them two blazing eyes and refused to utter a word 
about the manuscript. A symptom of sense return- 
ing to some of the interlocutors, he was approached 
in another way and as if he might possibly be a 
reasonable being. Meeting, as was his wont, courtesy 
with courtesy, after some persuasion, he said that the 
original document was one of a mass of old parch- 
ments taken by his father from the Muniment Room 
of St. Mary Redcliffe; and with this statement the 
aroused antiquarians of Bristol were, singularly 
enough, content. At least they did not demand 
to see the original, made no inquiries about other 
documents that might exist in the same collection, 
and desisted from what to the average mind inter- 
ested in such matters would seem an exceedingly 
alluring scent. The boy was Thomas Chatterton. 

One man in Bristol might easily have surmised 
the authorship of the ancient story about the open- 
ing of the bridge. Surgeon Barrett,, if he had stopped 
to think, might have perceived that his strange boy 
friend, who talked so much about St, Mary Redcliffe 
. and the ancient things of Bristol, who was so ready 
and ingenious, would be likely to know something 
about that peculiar document. But if Barrett sus- 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 69 

pected the identity of "Dunhelmus Bristoliensis," he 
confided his thinkings to no one but let that mystery 
take its course. Yet he now became more intimate 
than ever with the Blue Coat boy, to whom about 
this time he was the means of introducing another 
acquaintanceship 1 almost as unfortunate as his own. 
Among the surgeon's close cronies was a foolish 
prating person named George Catcott, of whom we 
shall hear more, a mindless man whose business was 
making pewter and who entertained himself with the 
notion that he had a pretty taste in antiquities and 
old literature. He was, besides, afflicted with two 
distempers: a desire to meddle and an insatiable 
craving for notoriety. Of the latter I cite two in- 

1 The time at which Catcott 's acquaintance began with Chatterton is, like so 
many other facts in this story, clouded by the theories and wishes of various com- 
mentators and by uncertain testimony. Catcott himself gave no clear account of 
it. He said that walking in St. Mary Redcliffe one day a friend told him of the 
wonderful discoveries of ancient poems recently made there by a young man and 
he thereupon desired to make this young man's acquaintance. Accordingly an 
introduction followed. If this account be true the friend was of course Barrett. 
But Catcott goes on to say that almost at once and freely Chatterton gave him a 
great number of manuscripts of poems in the antique, and as we know that some 
of these were not produced until later, and as it was not like Chatterton to be so 
confiding, the whole narrative is under suspicion. When Catcott made his state- 
ment what mind he had was probably failing. He knew so little about Chatterton 
anyway that he did not know that the boy was a posthumous child. In the Bristol 
Museum are preserved some very curious notes by Catcott made into a volume with 
a copy of one of Tyrwhitt's editions of Chatterton in which there are repeated 
attempts to controvert the conclusions of Tyrwhitt as to the genuineness of Rowley. 
These notes convey a rather painful notion of the poor man's mentality, but they 
serve to show how unlucky Chatterton was in the persons that had most to do in 
influencing his life. 



jo THOMAS CHATTERTON 

stances : when the new bridge was all but completed 
he risked his neck and gave five guineas that he 
might be the first to ride a horse across it on loose 
planks, an infantile clutch at celebrity of which he 
was inordinately proud; and he climbed with ropes the 
new spire of St. Nicholas church that he might place 
under the top stone a pewter plate bearing his name. 
He took himself with such seriousness that in all his 
life he never supposed it possible any one could laugh 
at him, and when in after years he was lampooned 
and satirized, uniformly accepted the most caustic 
sarcasm for honest praise. In short, a dull pom- 
pous man with no more sense of humor than a sheep. 
This creature was prodigiously excited about the 
"Dunhelmus Bristoliensis" letter and besieged the 
newspaper office to find its source. To the day of 
his death he never questioned its authenticity; to 
him the whole story was sent out of the veritable 
past for his" own delectation. He talked much with 
Barrett about it and eventually warmed that some- 
what frigid person into a show of enthusiasm. The 
surgeon perceived that here was something available 
for that ponderous history of his; the cackling Catcott 
was interested in anything that could be manufac- 
tured into conversation (in which he dealt at least 
as much as in pewter), and the result was that when 
they learned that this boy had knowledge of other 
parchments they vied with each other in assiduous 
attention to him. 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER Ji 

Now this boy, as I have pointed out, had a many- 
sided mind, and his experience at Colston's clerk 
mill had ground fine the side that was all a keen and 
hungry observation of men and affairs. He had 
associated enough with commonplace persons to see 
that while they floundered he could go straight to 
the mark. Hence he had a certain self-confidence in 
dealing with them and a certain amusement in 
watching their clumsy mental operations. He had 
learned at Colston's the essential lesson of commerce, 
the genial practises of material success, the gospel 
that what men live for is to surpass or out-maneuver 
other men. He saw plainly enough the funda- 
mental principle of business, the cold selfishness of 
gain, and he was not imposed upon by the pretenses 
of morals with which we are pleased to cloak it. 
The great passion of his inner life, next to his poetry 
and his dreams, was books; for books he had an 
insatiable craving. Barrett had a library and was 
eager to get old documents to use in his history. 
Thus, without more words on either side, a kind of 
agreement was reached. Barrett lent books to 
Chatterton; Chatterton gave to Barrett copies of old 
manuscripts, and the spurious history thus evolved, 
the surgeon, with childish credulity, incorporated 
into his great tome. 

Or in this light, at least, the world has elected to 
regard Barrett's performances. Whoever comes now 



72 



THOMAS CHATTERTON 



to original investigation of this strange story will 
be likely to gain grave doubts of it. Some things 
about the compact between the boy and the man 
have never been revealed; some things in the man's 
conduct sorely need an explanation that, if we had 
it, would probably pluck out the heart of this mystery. 
For instance, was Barrett really ignorant that the 
boy was manufacturing for him spurious evidence ? 
Was he really deceived about the quality of any pur- 
ported manuscript that was submitted to him ? Did 
the boy really work without suggestion from any 
one ? From Barrett, for a guess ? And of these 
manuscripts that were delivered every week or so to 
the historian-surgeon how many were genuine and 
how many were fictitious ? 

For we know now that not all the parchments that 
Chatterton produced were covered with his own 
inventions; some of the documents carried from 
Canynge's Coffer had genuine historical value; that 
is apparent from the scraps that have survived. 
What has become of those whereof we have now no 
record ? That is the first question. From the time 
they passed into Barrett's hands they seem to have 
disappeared. What did he do with them ? Copies 
of some of them, memoranda of others, he used in 
his history. What became of the originals ? Barrett 
lived to see the authenticity of all the Chatterton 
documents assailed and defended; he never cared 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 73 

to go into the matter of these originals, although he 
professed to be deeply interested in all antiquities. 
Can one conceive that an antiquarian could be so 
indifferent to such documents that in wantonness or 
neglect he should destroy them ? 

And this is but a small part of the cloud of doubt 
that enfolds all this melancholy matter. It is chiefly 
because of the fabricated documents he gave to 
Barrett that the name "forger" has been fastened 
upon Thomas Chatterton. Most of his other experi- 
ments in the antique never saw the light until after 
his death, and even injustice so gross as has been his 
portion could hardly charge him with posthumous 
forgery. But are we so sure that he was the respon- 
sible forger in the case of the Barrett documents ? 
Everybody has accepted the story, no one has inves- 
tigated it. Certainly if that drama were to be 
re-enacted now we should hesitate to condemn any 
fifteen-year-old boy on such evidence and in such 
circumstances. For instance, Barrett was Chatter- 
ton's most frequent companion; we know that the 
boy looked upon the man with more respect and 
confidence than he felt for any other person in Bristol. 
At one time he desired to study medicine and to be 
articled to the surgeon; he was almost daily in the 
surgeon's house. Admitting it to be quite possible 
that the boy should be willing to deceive and impose 
upon the man by giving him false documents, it was 



74 



THOMAS CHATTERTON 



extremely improbable that the man should be de- 
ceived in any such way. Why ? Because there was 
no other person in Bristol, if in England, so well 
informed as to the difference between genuine old 
documents and fabricated old documents. 

For long before he knew Thomas Chatterton this 
surgeon had known about that chest in the Muniment 
Room and its contents. A barber of Bristol, one 
Morgan, who dabbled in antiquities (incredible as 
it may seem the educated men of the day despised 
such studies when related to their own country), had 
gathered many of the parchments, certainly as early 
as the pilfering of others by Chatterton's father, and 
from Morgan's collection Barrett had been a fre- 
quent purchaser. He tells us that he obtained from 
the barber enough of the old parchments to fill a 
volume. He never tells us what became of them, 
but this at least is clear and certain, that before 
Chatterton came into Barrett's life Barrett was ex- 
pert in the nature of the genuine old documents from 
Canynge's Coffer. He had handled, examined, pur- 
chased and copied hundreds of them, and being by 
all accounts a thrifty soul, there was no one less likely 
to be deceived about them. How could he fail to 
detect Chatterton's imitations ? Of such of these as 
have come to light few are in the least likely to 
deceive any one that has eyes good enough to see a 
church by daylight. And here was Barrett, the 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 75 

shrewd bargainer, the canny purchaser of other things 
of this nature, taken in by what has never taken in 
anybody else. To be sure many of the documents 
were genuine, that is true enough, but as to the rest, 
either Barrett did not look at them with the least 
attention, or he knew quite well that they were manu- 
factured and was willing to profit in his way by their 
making. This is the inevitable conclusion. On the 
whole, perhaps, we are all wrong in our zeal to de- 
nounce this boy. Perhaps some of the odium that 
for more than a century has hung about his name 
belongs elsewhere. William Barrett was then a 
mature man; he was dealing with a boy fourteen, 
fifteen years old, a boy without training or experi- 
ence. Suppose we cease to castigate the boy " literary 
forger" and pay some attention to the man that had 
at the very least abundant reason to know of the 
forgeries and never made the slightest effort to 
discourage them. This man was then engaged in 
writing a work in which the authenticity of his state- 
ments was not likely to be questioned. If there be 
any kind of a history that is wholly apt to escape 
too curious comment it is one designed for local 
consumption and flattering to the local vanity. How 
could he suspect that this boy would ever be the 
means of throwing a white light upon his book ? 
His heart was set upon acquiring parchments, there 
is reason to think he was not disposed to be over- 



76 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

scrupulous about them, and when we discover, as 
we shall further on, that in one of the fabrications 
Chatterton had Barrett's active assistance, and that 
in the one deception that has done the boy the most 
harm he had Barrett's cooperation and advice, we 
may well suspect that from the beginning the world 
has been on the track of the wrong offender. 

But even if Barrett had no knowledge of the 
making of the false manuscripts, even if he were 
inconceivably dull and inordinately gullible and next 
to sand blind, even if Chatterton were alone respon- 
sible, it is still a just conclusion that we have hounded 
this boy long enough. Many things are to be con- 
sidered that in the case of any one else, say one not 
delegated to be an awful example, would have aroused 
pity and tender consideration; many facts would 
seem to palliate and obscure the atrocity of his of- 
fense. I purpose to go into them fully here because 
it is chiefly by the citing of these spurious manu- 
scripts that one of the greatest poets and greatest 
intellects of the world has been kept out of the 
recognition due to his genius. 

We know, as I have before pointed out, that some 
of the documents Chatterton furnished were not only 
genuine but of real interest and value. Now Chat- 
terton supplied these documents in return for books, 
books that were the life of him, books that he must 
have or perish intellectually. Supposing, therefore, 






THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER yy 

that the fictitious documents were not made at the 
instance of another, we may believe that so long as 
he could he delivered the genuine relics. When 
they failed, the thought of losing his supply of books 
was more than he could endure, and the repeated 
demands of the surgeon drove him to the fabricating 
of other documents as he had made the parchment 
copy of "Elinoure and Juga"; the success of that 
innocent excursion inspired the others. 

The suggestion is not mine, 1 hence I am the more 
at liberty to show how reasonable it may be. As to 
the genuine nature and historical value of some 
documents from Canynge's Coffer, that is certain 
enough. One, at least, of the parchments 2 from 
that ancient repository threw invaluable light upon 
the very line of inquiry that Barrett was pursuing. 
For years after the breaking of the locks on the chests 
the parchments littered the floor of the Muniment 
Room. In some way one of them came into the pos- 
session of John Browning, of Barton, near Bristol, 

1 See Professor Wilson's admirable "Chatterton." 

2 Another document from the same source seems to have a singular history. 
Horace Walpole, in his letter of defense to the Rev. Mr. Cole, relates it, if any 
dependence can be placed upon Walpole's testimony. He says that an ancient 
painter's bill that forms the subject of one of the "Anecdotes of Painting" came 
from St. Mary Redcliffe, where it had been found some years before Chatterton 
■was born, and transcribed for Walpole by Vertue. Walpole tries to create the 
impression that Vertue, who was something of a poet, was the inspiration of Chat- 
terton, and that the painter's bill stimulated the boy to his pretended discoveries 
about old-time painters and others. 



78 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

and from his cabinet after his death was communi- 
cated to the Society of Antiquaries. It recorded the 
gift by Canynge to Redcliffe Church of a new Easter 
sepulcher and scenic accessories for the presenta- 
tion in the church of the Mystery of the Resurrection. 
The date was July 4, 1470, when Master Nicholas 
Pyttes was vicar of the church. The details of the 
gift are quaint and most interesting and throw light 
upon the manner of playing the Mysteries, which 
were the only form of dramatic entertainment known 
in that age. A list of the accessories included painted 
scenery of timber and cloth representing heaven and 
hell and God arising from the tomb, with other 
scenes. This notable matter came straight from 
Canynge's Coffer and doubtless there were others 
of like moment. 

If so, and we knew them, perhaps they would tend 
to solve one of the riddles of this mysterious affair. 
For one thing that always puzzles the investigator of 
the Chatterton story is the boy's astonishing and 
unaccountable familiarity with facts in the ancient 
history of Bristol that no one else was acquainted 
with, and that nevertheless were well authenticated. 
I will give two illustrations: 

The tower of Temple Church is about five 
feet out of plumb. In one of the Rowleyan docu- 
ments Chatterton made a reference to the building 
of this church that would account for the inclination 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 79 

of the tower. A few years after Chatterton's death, 
the old gates leading to Temple Church, having be- 
come decayed, were dug up and, in the excavating, 
evidence was found that Chatterton's account of the 
building was perfectly correct, although in his time 
knowledge about it seems to have been confined to 
himself. 

Again, in one of the manuscripts presented by 
Chatterton to Barrett was a description of Canynge's 
house, the Red Lodge, purporting to have been 
written by Rowley about 1460. The good priest 
says therein that the Canynge house occupied the 
site of an older building, a chapel of St. Mathias. 
"This Chapel," says Rowley (I modernize for the 
sake of the reader's ease), "was first built by Alward, 
a Saxon, in 867, and is now made into a Free Mason's 
lodge, of which I, unworthy, and Master Canynge 
are brethren." This was printed in Surgeon Barrett's 
huge tome, and when these matters began to be scru- 
tinized, was regarded as a mere flight of Chatterton's 
fancy, no one else having heard of such a matter and 
no testimony anywhere supporting it. Neverthe- 
less, when early in the last century a great part of the 
remains of the Canynge house was destroyed for the 
sweet and reasonable purpose of building a floor- 
cloth factory, the workmen uncovered under it an 
arched subterranean passage leading from Canynge's 
house, and the materials of an old building with 



80 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

Saxon columns. These columns evidently formed 
the front line of the buried building facing the 
river. For these facts there can be no explanation 
except that the boy possessed sources of informa- 
tion not known by the generality of men. He might, 
therefore, properly enough communicate this knowl- 
edge to Barrett. We have just seen an instance 
where he did this very thing and where the informa- 
tion was quite correct. How many other such in- 
stances are buried in Barrett's dull pages we shall 
never know. 

There is still another plea for our compassion and 
one not to be overlooked. The old verger now at 
St. Mary Redcliffe, who shows to visitors the Muni- 
ment Room and other interesting matters, always 
concludes his account of Thomas Chatterton by 
stating his belief that the boy was induced to his 
impostures "to help his poor mother." At which 
wise men, schooled in the accepted accounts, smile at 
the verger's defense and shake their heads. And yet, 
so complex are all the motives of men that the verger 
is partly right. This boy had no more compelling 
impulse than his passionate devotion to his mother 
and sister. All his dreams of success and future 
greatness centered about them; they were to share 
everything. Many times he told them what he 
planned to do for them, the house he would build 
for them, the comfort and luxury they should have 






THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 8l 

when he had achieved his fortune. For them he 
patiently endured the hardships and freezing atmos- 
phere of Colston's, which in his soul he detested. 
Hour after hour he spent with them building them 
these castles and happy in the airy structures. He 
had his plan, he knew his way of life, and books 
were as necessary to it as blood to his heart. Here 
were books at this scheming surgeon's. He reveled 
in them so long as the genuine documents lasted; we 
may well think that when these failed a dread lest 
his supply should be cut off was probably more than 
he could stand. 

For books were so hard to get, so hard! We know 
now that knowledge is the inalienable inheritance 
of all mankind, that to expect men to grow straight 
and sound without it is like expecting a tree to grow 
in a cellar. But in that day it was different, in that 
day knowledge was looked upon as a dangerous pos- 
session for all except the fortunate. The Bristol Mu- 
seum and Library preserves a record of the pitiable 
struggles and trials of Coleridge a few years later to 
get books in that same city, and Coleridge was a man 
and already marked by fame. What should this boy 
do, penniless, alone, unknown, friendless and driven 
implacably by this fierce thirst to know ? Mankind 
provides the conditions that make wrong-doing! 
inevitable and is then pleased to be much amazed 
that any one should do wrong. On a calm survey 



82 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

of this instance, the only real amazement will be 
that this boy did nothing worse than palm off his 
counterfeit antiques upon two foolish men. 

For Catcott insisted upon sharing in the unearthed 
treasures, and indeed he was of that open-mouthed 
and childish faith that with his pretensions and 
arrogance a boy of Chatterton's superior mind and 
cynical wit could hardly withstand the temptation 
to fool him. No doubt this was not the stern and 
edifying rectitude that with great wisdom we expect 
boys of fifteen to display upon all occasions, but it 
may be thought that more heinous offenses are of 
record. "There is in the world," remarks Charles 
Reade, "an animal of no great general merit but 
with the eye of a hawk for affectations. It is called 
a boy." Chatterton knew perfectly well that Catcott's 
antiquarian skill was sheer affectation, that his com- 
ments on ancient literature were merely absurd, that 
the man was a walking humbug. All quick-witted 
boys have an impulse to play tricks on such pre- 
tenders; the learned gentlemen that have overlooked 
this fact can never have been boys themselves. 
When, therefore, the ponderous pewterer wanted 
to see old manuscripts and talked of them with 
assumed learning, Chatterton obliged him with a 
few — from his own workshop. 

The number of these fabrications with which he 
favored the surgeon and the pewterer is really not 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 83 

great, though from the noise they have made in 
the world one would think they were legion. The 
penwork is cleverly done, that is beyond dispute, 
but nothing seems stranger than that any one should 
have been deceived by them; the ocher stains and 
candle-marks are so obvious that they look more 
like the experiments and amusements of an idle 
hour than like serious attempts at imitation. If 
Barrett did not indeed know more about their 
origin than he ever confessed there is need of a 
far more expert defense of his credulity than has 
appeared. 

The boy's diversions with the surgeon and the 
pewterer he held as something apart from the busi- 
ness of his soul, which was poetry. By this time we 
should have far outgrown the notions that any human 
being does anything great or small for one motive, 
that minds of extraordinary activity and capacity 
can be expected to be of one order, and that the 
creative temperament can always be perfectly con- 
sistent. Many causes combined to lead Chatterton 
along a certain way of deception, and not the least, 
we may suppose, was the fact that the men he fooled 
thought they were fooling him. Catcott, at least, 
believed that his young friend had no knowledge 
of the value of the manuscripts he produced, and the 
man's lumbering attempts to secure the manuscripts 
and yet to avoid the incurring of any expense to him- 



84 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

self in the getting of them were doubtless sufficiently 
amusing. The boy's inconsistency in indulging 
these pastimes when he was already deep in his con- 
ception and creation of the Rowley romance and 
the splendid Rowley poetry is remarkable enough; 
and yet the two came together shortly. For when 
he had made a Rowley poem it was inevitable that 
he should try it upon some one, and here was the 
avenue open; he tried it upon Barrett and Catcott, 
and among the ancient manuscripts to which these 
worthies were soon treated were copies of some of the 
best of the Rowley series. A boy fifteen years old 
and unguided could hardly be supposed to have hit 
upon very advanced notions about the immorality 
of deceiving those that had tried to deceive him. 
How much of the blame for his practises in this 
respect belongs to those that had been charged with 
the training of his youthful mind ? For instance, 
how about the head-master that had beaten him for 
writing poetry ? How about other beatings and the 
glacial atmosphere in which his moral virtues were 
expected to thrive ? How do we know that he was 
ever taught to do better ? And what but deceit is 
the child's inevitable refuge from tyranny ? He had 
borne on his frail little body the marks of many 
cudgels, but in all his life no one ever addressed him 
as a reasonable creature when it came to matters of 
right and wrong. No one ever took him aside and 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER $5 

told him that merely as a matter of practical ad- 
vantage and daily wisdom the straight plain path 
was the only path. No one ever invited his 
confidence, no one was ever interested in what 
vitally concerned him, nobody ever counseled him 
as a friend. 

I dwell at length upon what to most persons will 
seem a perfectly obvious and adequate defense, 
because far more space has heretofore been con- 
sumed in denouncing Chatterton for deceiving people 
than in pointing out to the world his marvelous work. 
As a matter of fact, Chatterton's relations with the 
surgeon and the pewterer are just as important as the 
number of times some other boy played truant. His 
art means much more than his weakness. 

Catcott had for partner in his pewtering enter- 
prise one Burgum, an ignorant vain man, who had 
prospered without education and, as it subsequently 
appeared, without deserving. It seems that becom- 
ing rich he was at great pains to hide, by an 
affectation of interest in matters of which he knew 
nothing, the defects of his early training. No one 
in Bristol made quicker detection of Burgum's pre- 
tenses than Chatterton. Possibly, also, he may have 
had some intuitive perception of the essential flaw 
in the man's honesty. However that may be, he 
saw that Burgum was ambitious to clear what was 
in contemporaneous eyes the social morass of his 



86 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

origin. One afternoon * Chatterton walked into the 
shop of Burgum & Catcott and quietly asked of 
the head of the firm this little question: 

"Do you know that you are descended from one 
of the oldest families in England ?" 

"God bless my soul — no! Is that so? How do 
you know?" cried the astonished pewterer. 

"I have seen the records," said Chatterton calmly. 

"Let's hear about it," said the delighted man. 

Chatterton obligingly produced a document trac- 
ing the pewterer's descent from Simon de Seyncte 
Lyze, earl of Southampton, who had come over with 
the Conqueror. The good news must have unsettled 
Burgum's reason, for it is stated that he gave the 
boy five shillings. The pedigree was carried down 
as far as the middle of the thirteenth century. In 

1 The period of the making of De Bergham pedigree is only one of innumerable 
matters about which in this story there have been conflicting surmises. Every 
biographer has fixed the time to suit himself, a genial practise that has prevailed 
concerning most details connected with Chatterton. Some have made it to occur 
while Chatterton was a Blue Coat boy and have declared that it was the first of his 
fabrications and suggested the rest. Joseph Cottle said that it was when Chatter- 
ton was sixteen years old, which would mean while he was at Lambert's. One 
point that all have overlooked is that Barrett assisted in the pedigree, which makes 
the date later than his introduction to Barrett, and probably at a time when they 
had long been acquainted. Some of these commentators seem artlessly to assume 
that Chatterton was of a wide acquaintance in Bristol and knew Burgum as he 
knew many others. As a matter of fact he knew few persons. Barrett, in all 
probability, introduced him to Catcott, and through Catcott he became acquainted 
with Burgum. This would make the hoax on Burgum of a time when Chatterton 
was in Lambert's office, and show that Cottle, who had no reason to misrepresent 
the case, had the correct date. 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER Sj 

a few days Chatterton returned with another instal- 
ment, continuing the family history from one Sir 
John de Bergham, a famous knight of the thirteenth 
century, to the reign of Charles II. Sir James de 
Bergham, said Chatterton's memorandum, "was 
one of the greatest ornaments of the age in which 
he lived. He wrote several books, and translated 
some part of the Iliad, under the title 'Romance 
of Troy,' which possibly may be the book alluded 
to in the following 'French Memoire,'" and then 
follows a quotation in old French. "To give you 
an idea of the poetry of the age," continues Chatter- 
ton in his memorandum of the pedigree, "take the 
following Piece, wrote by him (John de Bergham) 
about 1320." 

THE ROMAUNTE OF THE CXYGHTE 

BY JOHN DE BERGHAM 

The Sunne ento Vyrgyne was gotten, 

The floureys al arounde onsprvngede, 

The woddie Grasse blaunched the Fenne, 

The Quenis Ermyne arised fro Bedde; 

Syr Knyghte dvd ymounte oponn a Stede 

Ne Rouncie ne Drvbblette of make, 

Thanne asterte for dur'sie dede 

Y\ vthe Morglaie hvs Fooemenne to make blede 

Eke swythyn as wvnde. Trees, theyre Hams to shake. 

Al doune in a Delle, a merke dernie Delle, 

Wheere Coppys eke Thighe Trees there bee, 



88 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

There dyd hee perchaunce Isee 
A Damoselle askedde for ayde on her kne, 
An Cnyghte uncourteous dydde bie her stonde, 
Hee hollyd herr faeste bie her honde, 
Discorteous Cnyghte, I doe praie nowe thou telle 
Whirst doeste thou bee so to thee Damselle ? 
The Knyghte hym assoled eftsoones, 
Itte beethe ne mattere of thyne. 
Begon for I wayte notte thye boones. 

The Knyghte sed I proove on thie Gaberdyne. 

Alyche Boars enchafed to fyghte heie flies. 

The Discoorteous Knyghte bee strynge botte strynger the righte, 

The dynne bee herde a'myle for fuire in the fyghte, 

Tyl thee false Knyghte yfallethe and dyes. 

Damoysel, quod the Knyghte, now comme thou wi me, 
Y wotte welle quod shee I nede thee ne fere. 
The Knyghte yfallen badd wolde Ischulde bee, 
Butte loe he ys dedde maie itte spede Heaven-were. 
/ 

As the pewterer naturally could make nothing of 
this, his education being limited to English fairly 
writ, Chatterton was good enough to send along a 
translation, as follows: 

THE ROMANCE OF THE KNIGHT 

The pleasing sweets of spring and summer past, 
The falling leaf flies in the sultry blast, 
The fields resign their spangling orbs of gold, 
The wrinkled grass its silver joys unfold, 
Mantling the spreading moor in heavenly white, 
Meeting from every hill the ravish'd sight. 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 89 

The yellow flag uprears its spotted head, 
Hanging regardant o'er its wat'ry bed; 
The worthy knight ascends his foaming steed, 
Of size uncommon, and no common breed. 
His sword of giant make hangs from his belt, 
Whose piercing edge his daring foes had felt. 
To seek for glory and renown he goes 
To scatter death among his trembling foes; 
Unnerved by fear they trembled at his stroke; 
So cutting blasts shake the tall mountain oak. 

Down in a dark and solitary vale 

Where the curst screech-owl sings her fatal tale, 

Where copse and brambles interwoven lie, 

Where trees entwining arch the azure sky, 

Thither the fate-mark'd champion bent his way, 

By purling streams to lose the heat of day; 

A sudden cry assaults his list'ning ear, 

His soul's too noble to admit of fear. — 

The cry re-echoes; with his bounding steed 

He gropes the way from whence the cries proceed. 

The arching trees above obscur'd the light, 

Here 'twas all evening, there eternal night. 

And now the rustling leaves and strengthened cry 

Bespeaks the cause of the confusion nigh; 

Through the thick brake th' astonish'd champion see 

A weeping damsel bending on her knees: 

A ruffian knight would force her to the ground, 

But still some small resisting strength she found. 

The champion thus: "Desist, discourteous knight, 

Why dost thou shamefully misuse thy might?" 

With eye contemptuous thus the knight replies, 

"Begone! who ever dares my fury dies!" 



9 o THOMAS CHATTERTON 

Down to the ground the champion's gauntlet flew, 
"I dare thy fury, and I'll prove it too." 

Like two fierce mountain-boars enraged they fly, 

The prancing steeds make Echo rend the sky, 

Like a fierce tempest is the bloody fight, 

Dead from his lofty steed falls the proud ruffian knight. 

The victor, sadly pleas'd, accosts the dame, 

"I will convey you hence to whence you came." 

With look of gratitude the fair replied 

"Content; I in your virtue may confide. 

But," said the fair as mournful she survey'd 

The breathless corse upon the meadow laid, 

"May all thy sins from heaven forgiveness find! 

May not thy body's crimes affect thy mind!" 

The memorandum of the pedigree was thickly 
sown with marginal references to the authority for 
each statement, "The Roll of Battle Abbey," 
"Cotton's Records," "Ashmole's Order of the 
Garter, page 669," "Collins," "Thoresby," and 
repeatedly "Rowley," being given as the sources of 
information. Some of these authorities were of 
Chatterton's invention and some were thoughtfully 
drafted to do duty for the occasion. The strangest 
thing is that in the composing of this ingenious fraud 
he had the assistance of Barrett; here, as so often 
elsewhere, we encounter that peculiar person in a 
way that arouses suspicion. In the memorandum 
of the pedigree the translation of the Latin passages 
is in the surgeon's handwriting. It is possible, of 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 91 

course, that he furnished the translation without 
knowing for what use it was designed, but it is possi- 
ble only in the sense that any irrational supposition 
may be said to be possible. Burgum buzzed much 
about Bristol of his wonderful pedigree. As he was 
Catcott's partner and Barrett was Catcott's most 
intimate friend, it is incredible that Barrett should 
not hear of it if he did not have it brought to him, 
and, hearing of it, equally incredible that he should 
not recognize the Latin translation and the use to 
which it had been put. Yet he said never a word 
on the subject. If he had told Catcott, Catcott 
would have told Burgum; but for four or five years 
Burgum warmed himself, undisturbed and fatuously 
confident, in the glory of his new-found greatness. 
Then for some reason, possibly the incredulity of a 
neighbor or the scoffing of the ribald-minded, he 
sent the pedigree for verification to the Herald's 
College, at London, from which it was quickly 
returned with its spurious nature clearly demon- 
strated. Burgum survived the shock and possi- 
bly found consolation in the operations by which 
he subsequently won by fraud his partner's entire 
fortune. 

These were by no means the whole of the boy's 
activities while at Lambert's. One of his friends at 
Colston's had been the youth Baker, who also 
seems to have learned from that competent academy 



92 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

some lessons in disingenuousness. Perhaps we 
should do well to turn some of our investigating ener- 
gies toward the school to see what was morally amiss 
there, for assuredly something was wrong. Baker 
had now emigrated to Charleston, South Carolina, 
whence he wrote Chatterton that he had fallen in 
love with a Charleston beauty named Eleanor 
Hoyland, and knowing something of his former 
friend's facility in making verses he begged for a 
supply of a fervent character that he might pass upon 
Miss Hoyland as his own. Sound the tucket, let 
the charge begin upon this Baker, deceiver of the 
unsuspecting, passer of forged notes in the world 
of meter! Chatterton, whose views of love on his 
own account were of an exceedingly cynical and 
irresponsive sort, nevertheless heeded this cry of 
distress from the wounded and sent a stock of glow- 
ing addresses calculated to melt any lady's heart. 
"To the Beauteous Miss Hoyland," "Ode to Miss 
Hoyland," "Acrostic on Miss Eleanor Hoyland," 
and seven poems in different measures each entitled 
simply "To Miss Hoyland," sufficiently attest Chat- 
terton's laborious zeal for his friend as well as his 
versatility. How well he succeeded may be guessed 
from this specimen: 

Amidst the wild and dreary dells, 
The distant echo-giving bells, 
The bending mountain's head; 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 93 

Whilst Evening, moving thro' the sky, 
Over the object and the eye, 
Her pitchy robes doth spread; 

There, gently moving thro' the vale, 
Bending before the blust'ring gale, 

Fell apparitions glide; 
Whilst roaming rivers echo round, 
The drear reverberating sound 

Runs through the mountain side; 

Then steal I softly to the grove, 
And, singing of the nymph I love, 

Sigh out my sad complaint; 
To paint the tortures of my mind, 
Where can the Muses numbers find ? 

Ah! numbers are too faint! 

and so on. It appears that he had not only to imagine 
the inspiration and beauty of the fair one, but the 
scenery in which she moved, a task that might have 
daunted an expert. 

In these days he was busily engaged on his Rowley 
poems, but found time to write in another manner 
a great deal of verse and some prose. The qualities 
that make a satirist and the qualities that make a 
poet are commonly and justly regarded as incom- 
patible. Satire requires a nature observant, keen, 
humorous, addicted to close reasoning; the singing 
poet must have introspection, melodic gifts and 
dreams. That is to say, one nature is the opposite 



94 



THOMAS CHATTERTON 



of the other. The sharp difference between the two 
may be seen if we place Pope by Tennyson, or Dryden 
by Swinburne. But in this boy were strangely 
united both natures; he was both dreamer and ob- 
server, singer and satirist; he had both introspection 
and observation. One commentator has asserted 
that every poet is bi-sexual. Here is one clearly 
bi-natural. With one side of his nature he dreamed 
of Rowley and Canynge, dwelt in the past, heard 
old minstrels and saw the pomp and circumstance of 
medievalism all about him; with the other side he 
watched the men and manners of his time and from 
his observations made a series of satiric portraits 
of contemporaries at least as vivid as anything that 
Churchill did and often far more vitriolic. Nothing 
that happened in the nation and was reported in 
the newspapers escaped his attention. He saw the 
conflict beginning between the people and privilege, 
between surviving feudalism and rising democracy, 
and from natural sympathy and conviction, he threw 
himself, a mere boy but with the most powerful pen 
and original genius in England, into the fight for 
liberty. 

Of the documents supplied by Chatterton to meet 
the persistent demands of Barrett there were in 
prose certain writings purporting to have been made 
by Rowley at Canynge's request and describing the 
state of the arts, or bearing on old Bristol history; 




The Supposed Portrait of Chatterton. 
(From a photograph in the possession of Mr. Edward Bell.) 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 95 

and in verse two of the finest specimens of Chatter- 
ton's genius, "The Parlyamente of Sprytes" and 
"The Battle of Hastings." "The Parlyamente of 
Sprytes" was also entitled "A Most Merrie Entyr- 
lude, plaied bie the Carmelyte Freeres at Mastre 
Canynges hys greete howse, before Mastre Canynges 
and Byshoppe Carpenterre, on dedicatynge the 
chyrche of Oure Ladie of Redclefte," "wroten bie 
T. Rowleie and J. Iscamme," Iscam being in the 
Rowley romance a canon of St. Augustine's monas- 
tery. If we suppose Barrett to have been an inno- 
cent dupe he must have been too ignorant to know 
whether interludes in modern rhymes and elegant 
stanzas were played in the time of Edward IV and 
too dull to be suspicious of the appearance of a second 
medieval poet also of extraordinary endowments, 
but in simple faith accepted all. He incorporated 
"The Parlyamente of Sprytes" as a veritable docu- 
ment in his interminable "History of Bristol," if 
that has any bearing on the question. The piece 
has an introduction in several stanzas followed by 
a spirited chorus, and then proceeds, in a manner 
of a mask (bearing, in fact, considerable resem- 
blance to Mr. Swinburne's "Masque of Queen 
Bersabe"), the spirits of various worthies coming in 
with speeches in different stanzas; for one of the 
most amazing things about this amazing boy is his 
facility in varying stanzaic and metrical forms, in 



96 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

which he excels any preceding English poet. In this 
brief poem, for instance, there are eight kinds of 
stanzas, of which two are wholly of Chatterton's 
invention and some others are adapted or changed 
for his purpose. The introduction ("Entroductyon 
bie Queene Mabbe") begins thus: 

Whan from the erthe the sonnes hulstred, 
Than from the flouretts straughte with dewe, 
Mie leege menne makes yee awhaped 
And wytches theyre wytchencref doe. 
Then ryse the sprytes ugsome and rou, 
And take theyre walke the letten throwe. 

Than do the sprytes of valourous menne, 
Agleeme along the barbed halle; 
Pleasaunte the moultrynge banners kenne, 
Or sytte arounde yn honourde stalle. > 
Our sprytes atourne theyr eyne to nyghte, 
And looke on Canynge his chyrche bryghte. 

This has been partly modernized, not very happily, 
for Mr. Skeats, as follows: 

When from the earth the sun's hulstred, 
Then, from the flowrets straught with dew, 
My liege men make you awhaped, 
And witches then their witchcraft do. 
Then rise the sprites ugsome and rou, 
And take their walk the churchyard through. 

Then do the sprites of valorous men 
Agleam along the barbed hall, 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 97 

Pleasant the moldering banners ken, 
Or sit around in honored stall. 
Our spirits turn their eyes to-night, 
And looke on Canynge's churche bright. 

"Hulstred" means hidden, "stra light" is filled or 
stretched, "awhaped" is amazed, "ugsome" is 
ugly, "rou" is rough, "barbed" means adorned. 
Attempts to modernize Chatterton are always un- 
satisfactory. The antique words of his usage and 
the words he coined were chosen by him with a 
musician's delicate sense of sound value; to change 
them always impairs the harmony. Whoever would 
know all the worth of Chatterton's poetry must 
take the slight trouble to read him in the original. 
He is no harder than Chaucer; in fact I think easier 
than Chaucer. The chief requirement is to observe 
a small glossary that might be printed at the bottom 
of each page, and once the significance of the strange 
words is learned the verse appears of a wonderful 
and ethereal quality of beauty. It should be borne 
in mind also that the general scheme of the Rowley 
versification is often, like Chaucer's, rhythmical, not 
metrical. Thus in this introduction the natural 
readings of the first and third lines (in the way that 
Chatterton undoubtedly intended), is 

Whan from the erthe the son-nes hulstred 

and 

Mie leeg-e menne makes yee awhap-ed. 



98 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

It is exceedingly difficult to maintain these essential 
rhythms in any modernized version. 

After the introduction and an address to the Bishop 
of Worcester the "Spryte of Nymrodde" speaks in 
a four-lined, alternately rhymed stanza, and in a 
manner exactly reproduced from the old moralities. 

Soon as the morne but newlie wake, 
Spyed Nyghte ystorven lye: 
On herre corse dyd dew droppes shake, 
Then fore the sonne upgotten was I, etc. 

"Ystorven" means dead. It will be seen by this 
example that there is nothing very difficult about 
reading Chatterton after the eye has grown accus- 
tomed to the strange spelling of familiar words. 

The "Sprytes of Assyrians" then sing a chorus 
of which the first stanza is 

Whan toe theyre caves aeterne abeste, 
The waters ne moe han dystreste 

The worlde so large 

Butte dyde dyscharge 
Themselves ynto theyre bedde of reste, etc. 

The spirits of eminent men then speak one after 
another of themselves and their deeds on earth, 
Elle or Aella, the mythical Saxon lord of Bristol 
(anciently "Brystowe" or "Bright-stowe"), and hero 
of some of the Rowley poems, Fytz Hardynge, 
Knyghtes, Templars, Frampton and others, ending 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 99 

with a second speech by Elle. In these speeches 
we find for the first time what may be called the 
Rowleyan stanza, several times used by Chatterton 
in these poems, consisting of ten lines rhymed as 
follows: a, b; a, b, b, c; b, c, c, d, d; or, not to use a 
scheme that may seem too technical, the first line 
rhymes with the third, the second with the fourth, 
fifth and seventh; the sixth with the eighth and the 
ninth with the tenth. We may take for an example 
of this stanza one from the speech of Fytz Hardynge: 

The pypes maie sounde and bubble forth mie name, 

And tellen what on Radclefte syde I dyd: 

Trinytie Colledge ne agrutche mie fame, 

The fayrest place in Brystowe ybuylded. 

The royalle bloude that thorow mie vaynes slydde 

Dyd tyncte mie harte wythe manie a noble thoughte; 

Lyke to mie mynde the mynster yreared, 

Wythe noble carvel workmanshyppe was wroughte. 

Hie at the deys, lyke to a kynge on's throne, 

Dyd I take place and was myself alone. 

A variation of this stanza appears in the first speech 
of Aella or Elle, wherein is exhibited, by the way, the 
strong sense for illuminating details, the feature of 
Chatterton's art that has given him enduring place 
among the colorists. He was, in fact, a painter, 
using words for colors. 



100 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

There sytte the canons; clothe of sable hue 
Adorne the boddies of them everie one; 
The chaunters whyte with scarfes of woden blewe, 
And crymson chappeaus for them toe put onne, 
Wythe golden tassyls glyttrynge ynne the sunne; 
The dames ynne kyrtles alle of Lyncolne greene, 
And knotted shoone pykes of brave coloures done: 
A fyner syghte yn sothe was never seen. 

A stage like this, bright with colors, and a back- 
ground of the varied trappings of medievalism, 
aroused the full strength of his artistic sympathies. 
He could paint other things well, but these and 
flowers he painted best. With any suggestion of 
the times in which his spirit dwelt he was instantly 
at home. He could see knights and monks, raised 
dais and banquet hall, charger and plume, castle 
and banner, not only in a general perspective but 
with a richness of detail unsurpassed in our litera- 
ture. It was not enough that he should see the 
"chaunters" dressed in "whyte"; the picture in 
his mind is incomplete without the blue scarf, the 
crimson hat, the gold tassels; and when he comes to 
the women he observes the ribbon-knots on their 
shoes as carefully as the colors of their gowns. It 
is this particularity of detail, and especially of signifi- 
cant detail, that has been noted as the most effective 
element in the art of two great modern poets, Rossetti 
and Morris — the power to seize upon and use the 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER ioi 

particulars that will bring before the mental vision, 
clear, vivid, veritable, the scene as the poet saw it. 
Keats, and many others since him, have had this 
great gift and used it for the delight of generations; 
but the first conspicuous instance of it in our poetry 
is to be found in the works of this strange boy of the 
charity school. 

"The Battle of Hastings" has a rather odd history 
that may serve to show us with what kind of men 
Chatterton was dealing. Two versions of the poem 
exist. When Chatterton delivered to Barrett the 
first version it bore a note under the title that it was 
"wrote by Turgot, the Monk, a Saxon, in the tenth 
century, and translated by Thomas Rowlie, parish 
preeste of St. Johns, in the city of Bristol, in the year 
1465." Barrett accepted this without question, but 
soon afterward thought (belatedly, as it seems), 
he should like to see some of the originals of all these 
treasures and asked Chatterton for the manuscript 
from which he had copied "The Battle of Hastings." 
Chatterton thereupon admitted that he himself had 
written "The Battle of Hastings" — for a friend. 
But he cheered the surgeon with the announcement 
that he had another poem on the same subject, a 
copy of an original by Rowley; and Barrett asking 
him for this second poem, after a time Chatterton 
gave him version No. 2, with the title "Battle of 
Hastyngs, by Turgotus, translated by Roulie for 



102 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

W. Canynge, Esq." In order to accept the theory 
that Barrett was an innocent dupe we are obliged 
to believe that he saw nothing suspicious in this 
extraordinary performance, that he desisted from 
his pursuit of the original, that Chatterton's admis- 
sion of the authorship of the first poem suggested 
nothing to the surgeon when another was forthcoming, 
that he accepted without question the appearance of 
these impossible Saxon poets and modern translators. 
One in whom all these things could awaken no sus- 
picions would seem unsafe to be at large unattended. 
Surely, the force of credulity could no further go. 
But Barrett, according to the wonted version of the 
story, had decided that Chatterton was stupid, and 
the comfortable doctrine is advanced that such a 
mind once reaching a conclusion becomes there- 
after a very Gibraltar against facts. Years after- 
ward, when all these events had begun slowly to 
take their place in the proper perspective and the 
literary world was beginning to see how marvelous 
a mind had glowed and gone out, Barrett still assured 
those that came to Bristol to investigate the story 
that Chatterton's talents "were by no means shin- 
ing." There is a post-facto flavor to this assertion 
that does not seem eminently satisfying, but I give 
it for what it is worth. 

The first version of "The Battle of Hastings" is 
in a ten-line stanza, but different from the stanza 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 103 

we have previously examined. The course of the 
battle, or of a battle, is described with a great minute- 
ness to the middle of the sixty-seventh stanza, where 
the version suddenly breaks off. Two stanzas will 
suffice to give an indication of its style and quality. 

Duke Wyllyam drewe agen hys arrowe strynge, 

An arrowe withe a sylver-hede drewe he; 

The arrowe dauncynge in the ayre dyd synge, 

And hytt the horse Tosselyn on the knee. 

At this brave Tosslyn threwe his short horse-speare, 

Duke Wyllyam stooped to avoyde the blowe; 

The yrone weapon hummed in his eare, 

And hitte Sir Doullie Naibor on the prowe; 
Upon his helme soe furious was the stroke, 
It splete his bever, and the ryvets broke. 



And nowe the battail closde on everych syde, 
And face to face appeard the knyghts full brave; 
They lifted up theire bylles with myckle pryde, 
And manie woundes unto the Normans gave. 
So have I sene two weirs at once give grounde, 
White fomyng hygh to rorynge combat runne; 
In roaryng dyn and heaven-breaking sounde, 
Burste waves on waves, and spangle in the sunne; 
And when their myghte in burstynge waves is fled, 
Like cowards, stele alonge their ozy bede. 

If this be not great poetry of its kind there is 
none in the language. 

In the second version, which is written in a 
different stanza, there is much description of an 



104 



THOMAS CHATTERTON 



inspired order of beauty, and some that shows us 
the indebtedness of Keats and a long line of other 
colorists. Take for instance these stanzas on 
Kenewalchae, wife of Adhelm, a knight in Harold's 
army: 

White as the chaulkie clyffes of Brittaines isle, 
Red as the highest colour'd Gallic wine, 
Gaie as all nature at the mornynge smile, 
Those hues with pleasaunce on her Iippes combine — 
Her Iippes more redde than summer evenynge skyne, 
Or Phoebus rysinge in a frostie morne, 
Her breste more white than snow in feeldes that lyene, 
Or lillie lambes that never have been shorne, 
Swellynge like bubbles in a boillynge welle, 
Or new-braste brooklettes gently whyspringe in the delle. 

Browne as the fylberte droppyng from the shelle, 
Browne as the nappy ale at Hocktyde game, 
So browne the crokyde rynges, that featlie fell 
Over the neck of the all-beauteous dame. 
Greie as the morne before the ruddie flame 
Of Phcebus' charyotte rollynge thro the skie, 
Greie as the steel-horn 'd goats Conyan made tame, 
So greie appear'd her featly sparklyng eye; 
Those eyne, that dyd oft mickle pleased look 
On Adhelm valyaunt man, the virtues doomsday book. 

Barrett had also the "English Metamorphoses" 
purporting to have been written by Rowley, a ver- 
sion in the Rowleyan stanza of the Legend of 
Locrine told by Spenser in the "Faerie Queene," 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 105 

(and utilized by Mr. Swinburne in his extraordinary 
rhymed tragedy) relating the myth of the origin of the 
River Severn's name. It has interest as showing 
that Chatterton attentively read Spenser, and as 
exhibiting the facility wherewith he bent his stanza 
to all purposes, narrative or lyric. But of this we 
shall see still more remarkable illustrations. 

One other of these productions has a more interest- 
ing history. In the Rowleyan romance were poems 
about the same mythical Aella we have before en- 
countered, lord of the castle at Bristol, victor over 
the Danes in the battle of Watchet, whose mighty 
deeds Rowley was supposed to sing. Chatterton 
accordingly favored Barrett with a copy of a "Songe 
to Aella," as a work of Rowley's. Barrett asked 
for the original manuscript. The next day Chatter- 
ton returned with a piece of parchment on which 
the poem was written in a clever imitation of the 
ancient chirography and in the manner of prose 
without capitals and without division into lines. 
The ink had the appearance of age and the whole 
parchment had superficial evidences of antiquity. 
The writing was small and extremely difficult to 
make out, but regular and all in keeping. It was 
noticed that the manuscript contained some varia- 
tions from the copy that Chatterton had offered the 
day before, but to the artless Barrett, this fact 
again seems to have suggested no query. We are to 



106 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

believe he entertained no doubt that he was handling 
some of the veritable handiwork of Thomas Rowley, 
preserved through centuries in the Muniment Room 
of St. Mary RedclifFe to adorn at last the History of 
Bristol. 

"Songe to Aella, Lorde of the Castel of Brystowe 
ynne Daies of Yore," it is called. It begins thus: 

Oh thou, orr whatt remaynes of thee, 

Aella, the darlynge of futurity, 
Lett thys mie songe bolde as thie courage be, 

As everlastynge to posteritye. 
Whanne Dacya's sonnes, whose hayres of bloude redde hue 
Lyche kynge-cuppes brastynge wythe the morning due, 

Arraung'd ynne dreare arraie, 

Upponne the lethale daie, 
Spredde farre and wyde onne Watchets shore; 

Than dyddst thou furiouse stande, 

And bie thie valyante hande 
Beesprengedd all the mees wythe gore. 

About the time that Rowley lived in Bristol John 
Lydgate, author of "London Lyckpenny" and a 
poet of renown and merit, was dwelling in London. 
Chatterton, as an ornament to the Rowley tissue 
that his fancy had woven, imagined his hero to have 
sent to Lydgate a copy of the "Songe to Aella" and 
Lydgate to have replied upon Rowley with a metrical 
epistle of five four-lined stanzas, and this also he 
conveniently added to the store already in the hands 
of Barrett. 




TWO SPECIMENS OF CHATTERTON'S WORK 

The first is a photographic copv of the parchment that Chatterton gave 
to Barrett, purporting to be the original of a poem by Rowley, entitled 
The Account of IV . Canynge^s Feast. The lines shown above read as follow.--: 



Thorowe the halle the belle han sounde; 
Byelecoyle doe the Grave beseeme; 
The ealdermenne doe sytte arounde, 
Ande snoffelle oppe the cheorte steeme. 
Lyche asses wylde ynne desarte waste 
Swotelye the morneynge ayre doe taste. 
Syke keene thie ate ; the minstrels plaie. 



The dynne of angelles doe theie keepe; 
Heie stylle, the guestes ha ne to saie, 
Butte nodde yer thankes ande falle aslape. 
Thus echone daie bee 1 to deene, 
Cyf Rowley, Iscamm, or Tyb. Gorges be 
ne seene. 



Thev 



Beneath are the arms of Canvnge as designed by Chatterton. 
not correctly given as the real bearings were three negroes' heads. 

The above fac-simile is bv the permission of the British Museum, where 
the originals are preserved. The parchment is artificially discolored to give 
it the appearance of age, but so carelessly that in one place the original color 
is plainlv to be seen. The writing in the poem is in red ink and so clear 
that no observant person could fail to see that it is modern. In fact the 
evidences of recent manufacture are so palpable that it is difficult to imagine 
how Barrett could be deceived bv the imposture. 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 107 

A particularly fine specimen of his work of these 
days (about his sixteenth year) is an interlude called 
"Goddwyn." It begins with this list of the "Per- 
sons Represented," from which it will be seen that 
on this occasion Mr. Canynge enjoyed at the Red 
Lodge the society of almost the entire company of 
Rowleyan Sprites: 

Harolde, bie T. Rowleie, the Aucthoure. 
Goddwyn, Johan de Iscamme. 
Elwarde, Syrr Thybbot Gorges. 
Alstan, Syrr Alan de Vere. 
Kynge Edwarde, Mastre Willyam Canynge. 
Odhers by Knyghtes Mynstrelles. 

The form is mostly a ten-line stanza, different 
from that we have found elsewhere, alternate lines 
being rhymed usually until the last two, which form 
a couplet, the tenth line being sometimes an Alex- 
andrine. But there are variations into four, six, 
and twelve-line stanzas. To give an idea of the 
spirited manner of this piece I quote the opening 
lines, using a modernized version, but com- 
mending the original to any reader that cares to 
know what this drama really is. "Loverde" means 
lord and "aledge stand" means to be molified. 

God. Harold! 

Har. My loverde! 

God. O! I weep to think 

What foemen rise up to devour the land. 



108 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

They batten on her flesh, her hearts blood drink, 

And all is granted from the royal hand. 

Har. Let not thy grievance cease nor aledge stand. 

Am I to weep ? I weep in tears of gore. 

Am I betrayed ? So should my burly brand 

Depict the wrongs on him from whom I bore. 

The subject of the play is the stirring events in 
the last days of Edward the Confessor and the con- 
spiracy of Goddwyn and Harold to defeat the plans 
of William of Normandy. There is an amazing 
skill of character painting in the fragment left us 
of this play. Harold is depicted as brave, boisterous, 
quick-witted and violent, a kind of Saxon Hotspur, 
but Goddwyn as cold and crafty; and between them 
the saintly character of King Edward struggles with 
his inherited blood of battle. The whole thing 
carried out on the lines begun would have been 
a notable achievement in any time by any hand. 
In one place Harold and Goddwyn, one straining 
forward and the other holding back, are conferring. 

God. Harold, what wouldest do ? 

Har. Bethink thee what. 

Here lieth England, all her rights unfree, 

Here lie the Normans cutting her by lot, 

Restraining every native plant to gre. 

What would I do ? I brondeous would them sle, 

Tear out their sable hearts by rightful breme: 

Their death a means unto my life should be, 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 109 

My sprite should revel in their heart-blood's stream. 

Eftsoons I will reveal my rageful ire, 

And Goddes anlace wield in fury dire. 

God. What wouldst thou with the king ? 

Har. Take off his crown : 

The ruler of some minister him ordain, 

Set up some worthier than I have plucked down 

And peace in England should be bray'd again. 

Here again I have used Mr. Skeats's moderniz- 
ing, which is probably as good as can be made; but 
no version can reproduce the strength of the poet's 
own work. The piece is broken off in the early- 
part of the action and still more deplorably in the 
midst of one of the loftiest flights of Chatterton's 
song and one of the great poems of all times. This 
is the famous "Hymn of Liberty" that all critics 
have assigned a place with the liberty odes of Shelley, 
Coleridge, and Swinburne. As Chatterton wrote it 
the swing and impetus of it are irresistible. I 
give it here reclothed in modish attire, but do so 
reluctantly, looking back to the grace and power 
of the first strange words. 

When Freedom, drest in blood-stained vest, 
To every knight her war-song sung, 
Upon her head wild weeds were spread, 
A gory anlace by her hung. 
She danced upon the heath, 
She heard the voice of death. 



110 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

Pale-eyed Affright, his heart of silver hue, 

In vain essayed her bosom to acale. 
She heard, unscared, the shrieking voice of woe, 
And sadness in the owlet shake the dale. 
She shook the burled spear, 
On high she raised her shield, 
Her foemen all appear 
And fly along the field. 

Power, with his head up-stretched unto the skies, 

His spear a sunbeam, and his shield a star, 
While like two burning balefires roll his eyes, 
Stamps with his iron feet, and sounds to war. 
She sits upon a rock, 
She bends before his spear, 
She rises from the shock, 
Wielding her own in air. 

Hard as the thunder doth she drive it on; 

Wit, closely wimpled, guides it to his crown; 
His long sharp spear, his spreading shield is gone; 

He falls, and falling rolleth thousands down. 
War, gore-faced War, by Envy armed, arist, 

His fiery helmet nodding to the air, 
Ten bloody arrows in his straining fist — 

And here the great chord breaks off, the music 
ceases. 

Few songs in English will better sustain analysis 
for consistent design and imagination, and the art 
of its music is wonderful; it sings itself. The sym- 
bolism of Force as the eternal foe of Liberty creeping 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER in 

upon her while she is unaware and being the forerun- 
ner of War, and of War springing to arms when by 
Liberty Force is overthrown, is as effective as has 
ever been conceived on this subject. What puzzles 
all judicious readers is that in all these poems there 
is no sign of an immature or undeveloped power. 
The lines are forged full strength; nothing falls short 
of its purpose because of lack of a grasp upon the 
instrument. How this charity school boy ever came 
by this facility is a mystery as great as the mystery 
of Shakespeare. 

To Catcott, Chatterton presented several tran- 
scripts of what he said were Rowley poems. To 
see merely the copies of these things seems to have 
been enough to throw the pewterer into rapturous 
delight. He never asked to see an original manu- 
script, never questioned the authenticity of anything, 
never suspected that he was being gulled, but ap- 
plauded to the echo each new revelation of Rowley's 
wondrous skill. Among these treasures was "The 
Tournament," of which Catcott had a copy in Chat- 
terton's hand-writing. It is a poem sometimes in 
the Rowleyan ten-line stanza, sometimes in other 
forms, reciting the prowess of Simon de Burton, the 
supposed builder of the original church on the site 
of St. Mary Redcliffe, and, of course, a figure of 
traditional importance to Bristol. Burton tilts with 
many knights, including Sir John de Berghamme 



112 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

and finally with the Mysterious Stranger, who had 
overthrown many other opponents, and all fall before 
his strength and skill. The thing has dramatic 
form and much spirit and action, but chiefly is 
esteemed for the excellent minstrels' song with which 
it comes to an end after Sir Simon has been crowned 
king of the tourney: 

Whann Battayle, smethynge wythe new quickenn'd gore, 
Bendynge wythe spoiles, and bloddie droppynge hedde, 
Dydd the merke wood of ethe and rest explore, 
Seekeynge to lie onn Pleasures downie bedde, 

Pleasure, dauncyng fromm her wode, 

Wreathedd wythe floures of aiglintine, 

From hys vysage washedd the bloude, 

Hylte hys swerde and gaberdyne, etc. 

which may easily be modernized as follows: 

When Battle, smoking with new quickened gore, 
Bending with spoils and bloody drooping head, 
Did the dark wood of ease and rest explore, 
Seeking to lie in Pleasure's downy bed, 

Pleasure, dancing from her wood, 

Wreathed in flowers of eglantine, 

From his visage washed the blood, 

Hid his sword and gaberdine, etc. 

The song is particularly valuable to those that 
follow the development of English poetry, from its 
introduction of a trochaic foot (long, short), in the 
last four lines, the use of troches being very rare 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 113 

before Chatterton's time, and the form followed here, 
of an iambic alternately with a trochaic movement 
(iambic in first four lines, trochaic in last four), being 
without precedent. Its use in latter-day poems may 
be seen in Mr. Swinburne's "Litany of Nations" 
where it appears with powerful effect. 

Catcott also came into possession of the " Bristowe 
Tragedie; or, the Dethe of Syr Charles Bawdin," 
being a story told in the form of an old ballad and 
an impressive instance of the boy's fairest work. 
It has been rightly held to be one of the most power- 
ful ballads we possess. Some of the pictures in it, 
as that of the procession, have never been surpassed 
for clearness and vigor. I give these extracts in 
the original form, since the difficulties of reading it 
are very slight: 

The feathered songster chaunticleer 

Han wounde hys bugle home, 
And tolde the earlie villager 

The commynge of the morne : 

Kynge Edwarde sawe the ruddie streakes 

Of lyghte eclypse the greie; 
And herde the raven's crokynge throte 

Proclayme the fated daie. 

"Thou'rt righte," quod hee, "for, by the Godde 

That syttes enthron'd on hyghe! 
Charles Bawdin, and hys fellowes twaine, 

To daie shall surelie die." 



114 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

Thenne wythe a jugge of nappy ale 
Hys Knyghtes dydd onne hymm waite; 

"Goe tell the traytour, thatt to daie 
Hee leaves thys mortall state." 

Syr Canterlone thenne bendedd lowe, 
Wythe harte brymm-fulle of woe; 

Hee journey 'd to the castle-gate, 
And to Syr Charles dydd goe. 

But whenne hee came, hys children twaine, 

And eke hys lovynge wyfe, 
Wythe brinie tears dydd wett the floore, 

For good Sir Charleses lyfe. 

"O goode Syr Charles!" sayd Canterlone, 

" Badde tydings I doe brynge." 
"Speke boldlie, manne," sayd brave Syr Charles, 

"Whatte says thie traytor kynge ?" 

"I greeve to telle, before yonne sonne 

Does fromme the welkin flye, 
Hee hathe uponne hys honnour sworne, 

Thatt thou shalt surelie die." 

"Wee all must die," quod brave Syr Charles, 

"Of thatte I'm not afFearde; 
Whatte bootes to lyve a little space ? 

Thanke Jesu, I'm prepar'd; 

" Butt telle thye kynge, for myne hee's not, 

Tde sooner die to daie 
Thanne lyve hys slave, as manie are, 

Tho' I shoulde lyve for aie." 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 115 

Thenne Canterlone hee dydd goe out, 

To tell the maior straite 
To gett all thynges ynn reddyness 

For goode Syr Charles's fate. 

Thenne Maisterr Canynge saughte the kynge, 

And felle down onne hys knee; 
"I'm come," quod hee, "unto your grace 

To move your clemencye." 

Thenne quod the kynge, "youre tale speke out, 

You have been much oure friende; 
Whatever youre request may bee, 

Wee wylle to ytte attende." 

"My nobile leige! alle my request 

Ys for a nobile knyghte, 
Who, tho' mayhap hee has donne wronge, 

Hee thoughte ytte stylle was ryghte: 

"Hee has a spouse and children twaine, 

Alle rewyn'd are for aie; 
YfF thatt you are resolv'd to lett 

Charles Bawdin die to daie." 

"Speke nott of such a traytour vile," 

The kynge ynne furie sayde; 
"Before the evening starre doth sheene, 

Bawdin shall loose hys hedde; 

"Justice does loudlie for hym calle, 

And hee shalle have hys meede: 
Speke, Maister Canynge! whatte thynge else 

Att present doe you neede ?" 



Il6 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

"My nobile leige," goode Canynge sayde, 
"Leave justice to our Godde, 

And laye the yronne rule asyde; 
Be thyne the olyve rodde. 

"Was Godde to serche our hertes and reines, 

The best were synners grete; 
Christ's vycarr only knowes ne synne, 

Ynne alle thys mortall state. 

"Lette mercie rule thyne infante reigne, 
'Twylle faste thye crowne fulle sure; 

From race to race thy familie 
Alle sov'reigns shall endure: 

"But yff wythe bloode and slaughter thou 

Beginne thy infante reigne, 
Thy crowne uponne thy childrennes brows 

Wylle never long remayne." 

"Canynge, awaie! thys traytour vile 
Has scorn'd my power and mee; 

Howe canst thou thenne for such a manne 
Intreate my clemencye?" 

"Mie nobile leige! the trulie brave 

Wylle val'rous actions prize, 
Respect a brave and nobile mynde, 

Altho' ynne enemies." 

"Canynge, awaie! By Godde ynne Heav'n 

Thatt dydd mee being gyve, 
I wylle nott taste a bitt of breade 

Whilst thys Syr Charles dothe lyve. 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 117 

" Bie Marie, and alle Seinctes ynne Heav'n, 

Thys sunne shall be hys laste;" 
Thenne Canynge dropt a brinie teare, 

And from the presence paste. 

Wyth herte brymm-fulle of gnawynge grief, 

Hee to Syr Charles dydd goe, 
And satt hymm downe uponne a stoole, 

And teares beganne to flowe. 

"Wee alle must die," quod brave Syr Charles, 

"Whatte bootes ytte howe or whenne; 
Deth ys the sure, the certaine fate 

Of all wee mortall menne. 

"Saye, why, my friend, thie honest soul 

Runns overr att thyne eye; 
Is ytte for my most welcome doome 

Thatt thou doste child-lyke crye?" 

Quod godlie Canynge, "I doe weepe, 

Thatt thou soe soone must dye, 
And leave thy sonnes and helpless wyfe; 

'Tys thys thatt wettes myne eye." 

"Thenne drie the teares thatt out thyne eye 

From godlie fountaines sprynge; 
Dethe I despise and alle the power 

Of Edwarde, traytor kynge. 

"Whan through the tyrant's welcom means 

I shall resigne my lyfe, 
The Godde I serve wylle soone provyde 

For bothe mye sonnes and wyfe. 



Il8 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

"Before I sawe the lyghtsome sunne, 

Thys was appointed mee; 
Shall mortal marine repyne or grudge 

Whatt Godde ordeynes to bee ? 

"Howe oft ynne battaile have I stoode, 
Whan thousands dy'd arounde; 

Whan smokynge streemes of crimson bloode 
Imbrew'd the fatten'd grounde: 

"Howe dydd I knowe thatt ev'ry darte 

That cutte the aide waie, 
Myghte nott fynde passage toe my harte, 

And close myne eyes for aie ? 

"And shall I nowe, forr feere of dethe, 
Looke wanne and bee dysmayde ? 

Ne! fromme my herte flie childyshe feere, 
Bee alle the manne display'd. 

"My honest friende, my faulte has beene 
To serve Godde and my prynce; 

And thatt I no tyme-server am, 
My dethe wylle soone convynce. 

"Ynne Londonne citye was I borne, 

Of parents of grete note; 
My fadre dydd a nobile armes 

Emblazon onne hys cote: 

"I make ne doubte butt hee ys gone 

Where soone I hope to goe; 
Where wee for ever shall bee blest 

From oute the reech of woe: 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 

"Hee taughte mee justice and the laws 

Wyth pitie to unite; 
And eke hee taughte mee howe to knowe 

The wronge cause fromme the ryghte: 

"Hee taughte mee wythe a prudent hande 

To feede the hungrie poore, 
Ne lette mye servants dryve awaie 

The hungrie fromme my doore: 

"And none can saye butt alle mye lyfe 

I have hys wordyes kept; 
And summ'd the actyonns of the daie 

Eche nyghte before I slept." 

Quod Canynge, " 'Tys a goodlie thynge 

To bee prepar'd to die; 
And from thys world of peyne and grefe 

To Godde ynne Heav'n to flie." 

And nowe the bell beganne to tolle 

And claryonnes to sounde; 
Syr Charles hee herde the horses' feete 

A prauncing onne the grounde: 

And just before the officers 

His lovynge wyfe came ynne, 
Weepynge unfeigned teeres of woe 

Wythe loude and dysmalle dynne. 

And nowe the officers came ynne 

To brynge Syr Charles awaie, 
Whoe turnedd toe hys lovynge wyfe, 

And thus to her dydd saie: 



II 9 



120 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

"I goe to lyfe, and nott to dethe; 

Truste thou ynne Godde above, 
And teache thye sonnes to feare the Lorde, 

And ynne theyre hertes hym love: 

"Teache them to runne the nobile race 

Thatt I theyre fader runne: 
Florence! shou'd dethe thee take — adieu! 

Yee officers, leade onne." 

Thenne Florence rav'd as anie madde, 

And dydd her tresses tere; 
"Oh! staie, mye husbande! lorde! and lyfe!' 

Syr Charles thenne dropt a teare. 

'Tyll tyredd oute wythe ravynge loud, 

Shee fellen onne the flore; 
Syr Charles exerted alle hys myghte, 

And march'd fromm oute the dore. 

Uponne a sledde hee mounted thenne, 
Wythe lookes fulle brave and swete; 

Lookes, thatt enshone ne more concern 
Thanne anie ynne the strete. 

Before hym went the council-menne, 
Ynne scarlett robes and golde, 

And tassils spanglynge ynne the sunne, 
Muche glorious to beholde: 

The Freers of Seincte Augustyne next 

Appeared to the syghte, 
Alle cladd ynne homelie russett weedes, 

Of godlie monkysh plyghte: 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 121 

Ynne diffraunt partes a godlie psaume 

Moste sweetlie theye dydd chaunt; 
Behynde theyre backes syx mynstrelles came, 

Who tun'd the strunge bataunt. 

Thenne fyve-and-twentye archers came; 

Echone the bowe dydd bende, 
From rescue of Kynge Henrie's friends 

Syr Charles forr to defend. 

Bolde as a lyon came Syr Charles, 

Drawne onne a clothe-layde sledde, 
Bye two blacke stedes ynne trappynges white, 

Wyth plumes uponne theyre hedde: 

Behynde hym fyve-and-twentye moe 

Of archers stronge and stoute, 
Wyth bended bowe echone ynne hande, 

Marched ynne goodlie route: 

Seincte Jameses Freers marched next, 

Echone hys parte dydd chaunt; 
Behynde theyre backes syx mynstrelles came, 

Who tun'd the strunge bataunt: 

Thenne came the maior and eldermenne, 

Ynne clothe of scarlett deck't; 
And theyre attendyng menne echone, 

Like Easterne princes trickt: 

And after them, a multitude 

Of citizenns dydd thronge; 
The wyndowes were alle fulle of heddes, 

As hee dydd passe alonge. 



122 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

At the grete mynsterr wyndowe sat 
The kynge ynne myckle state, 

To see Charles Bawdin goe alonge 
To hys most welcom fate. 

Soone as the sledde drewe nyghe enowe, 
Thatt Edwarde hee myghte heare, 

The brave Syr Charles hee dydd stande uppe 
And thus hys wordes declare: 

"Thou seest mee, Edwarde! traytour vile I 

Expos'd to infamie; 
Butt bee assur'd, disloyall manne! 

I'm greaterr nowe thanne thee. 

"Bye foule proceedyngs, murdre, bloude, 
Thou wearest nowe a crowne; 

And hast appoynted mee to dye, 
By power nott thyne owne. 

"Thye pow'r unjust, thou traytour slave! 

Shall falle onne thye owne hedde" — 
Fromme out of hearynge of the kynge 

Departed thenne the sledde. 

Kynge Edwarde's soule rush'd to hys face, 

Hee turn'd hys hedde awaie, 
And to hys broder Gloucester 

Hee thus dydd speke and saie: 

"To hym that soe-much-dreaded dethe 

Ne ghastlie terrors brynge, 
Beholde the manne! hee spake the truthe, 

Hee's greater thanne a kynge!" 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 123 

"Soe lett hym die!" Duke Richard sayde; 

"And maye echone oure foes 
Bende downe theyre necks to bloudie axe, 

And feede the carryon crowes." 

And nowe the horses gentlie drewe 

Syr Charles uppe the hyghe hylle; 
The axe dydd glysterr ynne the sunne, 

Hys pretious bloude to spylle. 

Syr Charles dydd uppe the scaffold goe, 

As uppe a gilded carre 
Of victorye, bye val'rous chiefs 

Gayn'd ynne the bloudie warre. 

Thus was the ende of Bawdin's fate: 

Godde prosper longe oure kynge, 
And grante hee maye, wyth Bawdin's soule, 

Ynne heav'n Godd's mercie syngel 

The boy took this home when he had finished 
it and with pride showed it to his mother. He told 
her he had written it, and she never had other belief 
in the matter; but Catcott instantly ascribed it to 
Rowley, and despite all the contrary evidence was 
to the end of his life unshakable in his faith in that 
authorship. 

The oddest thing is that the story the ballad relates 
is historical, though in all Bristol this boy was prob- 
ably the only person that knew that fact, and how 



124 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

he found it I do not pretend to say. "Syr Charles 
Bawdin" is really Sir Baldwin Fulford, a Lancas- 
trian, who was put to death at Bristol in 1461 in the 
following manner: 

In 1460 (according to old Stow, the chronicler) 
while the War of the Roses was still on, "Richard, 
Lord Rivers [a Lancastrian], was sent to Sandwich, 
to keep the town and certain great ships which lay 
there at anchor; but when the Earl of Warwick saw 
time convenient he sent some of his men to Sand- 
wich by night, the which took the said Lord Rivers 
and Anthony Woodville, his son, in their beds, and led 
them over to Calais, with all the great ships save 
one called Grace de Dieu, the which might not be 
had away because she was broke in the bottom. 
Sir Baldwin Fulford undertook on pain of losing his 
head that he would destroy the Earl of Warwick." 
It appears that he went to Calais on this adventure 
and it failed, and while he was returning home to 
arouse the people against Edward, who had mean- 
time made great head and been crowned king, he 
fell into his enemies' hands. He and two squires 
captured with him were imprisoned in Bristol 
Castle. When they were brought to trial for high 
treason one of their judges was William Canynge, 
who must have served unwillingly in that painful 
capacity, for the judicial murder of a fellow-adherent 
of the lost cause was no light matter even in those 



THE TRADE OF A SCRIVENER 125 

callous times. All that Edward wanted was to have 
Fulford put out of the way, and that was quickly 
achieved. He and the two squires were beheaded 
almost at once. After the restless charity school 
boy had passed from the affairs of men it was proved 
from the old documents of St. Ewin's Church (which 
was once Bristol Minster), that King Edward was 
actually in Bristol at the time of Fulford's death. 
We need not suppose that he went there expressly to 
attend to the matter of murdering the knight, for he 
knew that work would be performed by his trusty 
men, but hewas certainly there, the church was cleaned 
in honor of his visit to it, and from the east window 
he might have witnessed the procession to the block 
exactly as Chatterton described. It seems that at 
the time the "Bristowe Tragedie" was written no 
one but Chatterton was aware of the king's visit. 
In the face of such startling facts as these I do not 
know how any one can with perfect confidence affirm 
any theory about the Chatterton impostures. He 
might have found almost anything among those 
documents that have so mysteriously disappeared 
from Barrett's hands. 

One other thing: His prose protest against the 
sacrilege of Churchwarden Thomas was signed "Ful- 
ford, the Grave Digger." Hence, it is not a forced 
surmise that he was then familiar with the story of 
Sir Baldwin Fulford, although he was then only 



126 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

eleven years old. Given a boy that at eleven knew 
of the ancient history of his native town more than 
any graybeard knew and almost anything might be 
expected when the graybeards imposed upon and 
beat him. 



The Rising Flame 

Yet another acquaintance of his in these days and 
another butt of his secret ridicule was the Rev. 
Alexander Catcott, vicar of the Temple Church 
at Bristol, and a brother of the pewterer-antiquarian. 
Some things the vicar knew, doubtless — Hebrew, 
for instance, in which he was reputed one of the 
foremost scholars in England — but he was densely 
ignorant of the literature of his own country, par- 
ticularly of its poetry, which he detested, and he 
was a firm upholder of a literal interpretation of the 
story of Noah's flood. His faith was no holiday 
affair: he had endured for it the pains of writing an 
elaborate book in its defense, and he had a collection 
he was pleased to call geological from the which he 
offered to prove his doctrine to the confusion of any 
skeptic. He had, moreover, certain traits of mind 
calculated to add to the concealed satisfaction of a 
cynical observer. He was extremely opinionated, 
narrow, and bigoted, though doubtless well enough 
meaning. For a time Chatterton found some 

pleasure in leading this good man into the intermi- 

127 



128 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

nable bog of theological debate, wherein the rector 
probably floundered rather amusingly. For himself 
Chatterton had long made up his mind about relig- 
ion, and his attitude theretoward was almost iden- 
tical with the creed that Shelley afterward held. 
That is to say, he had his own religion of faith and 
practise, dream and aspiration, but utterly rejected 
all the dogmas of the church and, indeed, all the 
supernatural parts of Christianity. He used to go 
to hear the Rev. Mr. Catcott's sermon of a Sunday 
morning and tell him in the afternoon how far astray 
he had been in his logic, a practise to which the 
defender of Noah's flood was not partial. Previ- 
ously Chatterton had formed a brief acquaintance 
with the Rev. Mr. Broughton, rector of his own St. 
Mary RedclifFe, but Broughton seems to have been 
irritated by the boy's frankly delivered opinions; they 
soon quarreled and Chatterton knew him no more, 
but became a regular attendant at Temple where 
his friend of Noachian fame held forth. Therein 
he had other purposes than to be instructed con- 
cerning the voyage of the ark. The vicar of Temple 
had books, and he had more, an influence strong 
enough to get the boy past the jealously guarded 
gates of the Bristol Library, or that is to say, into 
Paradise. This being presently accomplished, it 
may be supposed that his interest in a very uninspir- 
ing acquaintance came to an end. Yet not alto- 



THE RISING FLAME 129 

gether so; he subsequently satirized the vicar in 
some cutting verses, and then, with characteristic 
good-heartedness, regretted them and hoped the 
vicar did not take the raillery to heart. "When 
the fit is on me," he said, "I spare neither friend 
nor foe," and thus embalmed the name of one that 
would not otherwise linger in the human memory. 
In one respect, Alexander Catcott had more wit 
than his brother: he knew when he was laughed 
at, and it appears that to forgive an injury he was 
not so ready as became a preacher of the gospel. 

Once inside of Bristol Library, the boy ranged as 
far as his time would permit. Curious evidences of 
his labors still exist there. One of the treasures of 
that library is an old black letter Latin Dictionary, 
called "Promptorum Puerorum," printed at Stras- 
burg, part of it in 1484 and part in 1496. On some 
of the pages of this book some one that wrote much 
like Chatterton has been hard at work, making 
studies and copies of the ancient characters. On 
one page appears a date, "September, 1763," in 
the old letters, and elsewhere another date, "4th day 
July, 1463," four times repeated, each time slightly 
enlarged and changed. On the same page is 
"Liber D.B. ex domo," done in the old char- 
acter, "D. B." being the initials over which Chat- 
terton often wrote. On the margin of this page he 
has worked out an alphabet, capitals and lower 



130 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

case, and on other pages are traces of his busy pen, 
including some practise at the name "Catcott," all 
in imitation of the black-letter in which the book is 
printed. Chatterton wrote in a very clean, clear, 
copper-plate hand, not hard to recognize. I am 
certain that all these experiments in the old dic- 
tionary are his. 

He was now far advanced in the Rowley poems 
and, knowing so well the English poetry of his own 
and other times, it was impossible that he should not 
perceive the art worth of his work. He deter- 
mined to bring some of it to the test of such criti- 
cism as the time afforded. James Dodsley of Pall 
Mall, of a family whose memory is green for its 
service to good literature, was then the most fa- 
mous publisher and bookseller in England. He was 
of much wealth, some liberality of taste, rather un- 
usual repute for scholarly inclinings and of solitary 
and eccentric habits. His business training had 
doubtless been stern in the ways of convention. He 
must have been somewhat astonished, therefore, at 
two letters that he received about this time from 
an unknown correspondent in Bristol. The first 
read as follows: 

Bristol, December 21, 1768. 

Sir, — I take this method to acquaint you that I can procure 
copys of several Ancient Poems: and an interlude, perhaps the 
oldest dramatic piece extant; wrote by one Rowley, a priest in 



THE RISING FLAME 



W 



Bristol, who lived in the reigns of Henry Vlth and Edward IVth. 
If these pieces will be of service to you, at your command copys 
will be sent to you by, 

Y r most obedient serv 1 , 

D. B. 
Please to direct for D. B., to be left with Mr. Thos. Chatterton, 
RedclifFe Hill, Bristol. 

To this polite overture Dodsley returned no 
answer. Chatterton, not discouraged, renewed the 
attack in a second letter, February 15, 1769. There 
were reasons why of all publishers he should fix upon 
Dodsley as the man likeliest to suit his purposes, 
for Dodsley was believed in those days to have 
abnormal knowledge of and interest in ancient 
literature. But in the interim the boy must have 
turned over in his mind the possible reasons why his 
first communication had been neglected. It seemed 
to him likely that the trouble lay in the undue 
brevity, initialed signature, and lack of detail in 
his letter. So in his next communication he reme- 
died these defects in artless fashion and produced 
an epistle calculated to astonish any recipient. He 
wrote as follows: 

Sir, — Having intelligence that the Tragedy of Aella was in 
being, after a long and laborious search, I was so happy as to 
attain a sight of it. Struck with the beauties of it, I endeavoured 
to obtain a copy of it to send to you; but the present possessor 
absolutely denies to give me one, unless I give him a Guinea for a 
consideration. As I am unable to procure such a sum, I made 



, 132 , THOMAS CHATTERTON 

search for another copy, but unsuccessfully. Unwilling such a 
beauteous Piece should be lost, I have made bold to apply to you; 
several Gentlemen of learning, who have seen it, join with me in 
praising it. I am far from having any mercenary views for my- 
self in this affair, and, was I able, would print it at my own risque. 
It is a perfect Tragedy; the plot clear, the language spirited, and 
the Songs (interspersed in it) are flowing, poetical and elegantly 
simple; the similes judiciously applied, and though wrote in the 
reign of Henry VI, not inferior to many of the present age. If I 
can procure a copy, with or without the gratification, it shall 
immediately be sent to you. The motive that actuates me to do 
this is, to convince the world that the Monks (of whom some have 
so despicable an opinion) were not such blockheads as generally 
thought, and that good poetry might be wrote in the dark days of 
superstition, as well as in these more enlightened ages. An im- 
mediate answer will oblige. I shall not receive your favour as for 
myself but as your agent. 

I am. Sir, your most obedient servant, 

Thomas Chatterton. 

P. S. — My reason for concealing my name was lest my master 
(who is now out of town) should see my letters, and think I neg- 
lected his business. Direct for me on Redcliffe Hill. 

With this he sent an extract from the tragedy. 
At a bald proposition to forward a guinea to a youth 
of whom he had no knowledge Dodsley might well 
be startled. Naturally he did not respond with the 
guinea, and if he acknowledged the receipt of the 
letter the boy kept the answer to himself. The prim 
and precise bookseller of Pall Mall was not likely 
to be impressed favorably with a youth that was 



THE RISING FLAME 133 

avowedly misusing his master's time, and the 
"Tragedy of Aella" was not given to the world 
through the famous Dodsley. 

And yet he had never in his career published any- 
thing greater, and if the extract he received made 
any just representation of the piece it is incompre- 
hensible how he failed to see that whether Rowley 
were true or false here was a most extraordinary 
piece of work. For the "Tragedy of Aella" is not 
only the greatest of all the Rowley poems, but a work 
that purporting to be of any age from any hand 
would be recognized now as the certain product of 
genius. In that age it shines like a diamond in an 
ash-heap. Nothing comparable with it had been 
written since Milton; nothing equal to it came after- 
ward until Shelley. 

It has long been the custom to refer to the works 
of Chatterton as wonderful for a boy. In truth, 
mostly they would be wonderful for a man. Even 
now when the purely artistic view of poetry (of which 
he was the first exponent) has so many years domi- 
nated and developed our verse and carried it along 
the undreamed-of ways to heights equal with its 
sister arts, it is impossible to read with attention the 
"Tragedy of Aella" without being moved to admira- 
tion of its sheer art and exquisite workmanship. 

This is the story: Aella is the Saxon lord of the 
Castle of Bristol, a great warrior and leader. He 



134 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

has taken to wife Birtha, young, high-born, and 
beautiful. On their wedding-night, when with song 
and chorus the minstrels are entertaining the ban- 
queters at the wedding feast, news comes that the 
Dacians (or Danes) have landed and are ravaging 
the coast. Aella, in spite of his bride's entreaties, 
seizes his arms and rushes away to the war. In a 
great battle at Watchet he meets and routs the 
Danish army, and having meantime burned the 
Danish fleet he has the invaders at his mercy. 

His lieutenant, Celmonde, has long been secretly 
in love with Birtha. With gloomy and Iago-like 
malice he has watched the wedding festivities, 
and from the war he thinks to win either the 
woman he loves or revenge for his disappointment. 
He is brave enough, but bad. At once after 
the battle of Watchet he takes horse and rides at 
great speed to Bristol. In the middle of the 
night he reaches the castle, and tells Birtha that 
Aella, sorely wounded, has sent for her. In a frenzy 
of fear she runs from the castle without delaying to 
tell her serving woman. Celmonde is to guide her 
to the spot where Aella lies. In the dark woods he 
seizes her and declares his passion. She struggles 
from him and screams for help. A band of fugitive 
Danes with their leader, Hurra, hear her. Celmonde 
fights desperately against overwhelming odds and 
slays many, but is slain by Hurra. The Danes learn 



THE RISING FLAME 135 

that they have in hand the wife of the man that 
defeated them, but magnanimously protect her and 
undertake to lead her to Aella's camp. 

But in the meantime Aella has come home in 
triumph to share with his bride the news and glory 
of the great victory. He finds that Birtha has gone 
away with a knight and none knows whither. Con- 
vinced that she has proved false he stabs himself. 
As he lies on his bed Birtha comes in. They are 
reconciled, but Aella dies of his wound, and Birtha, 
flinging herself upon his body, dies of grief. 

After the strength and interest of the story and 
the dramatic power of its unfolding, the first impres- 
sion this play makes on us is of the infinite skill of 
its handling within the narrow limits of a difficult 
stanza. This is the Rowleyan ten-line stanza used 
elsewhere, but not as here with masterly strength 
and art in terse, rapid, and at times impassioned 
dialogue. I will give a specimen of this peculiar 
achievement. Aella has reached his door after his 
return from the battle of Watchet. Egwina, Birtha's 
tiring woman, meets him. 

Egwina. Oh Aella! 

Aella. Ah! that semmlykeene 1 to mee 

Speeketh a legendary tale of woe. 

Eg. Birtha is — 

Ael. Whatt ? where ? how ? saie, whatte of shee ? 

1 Appearance. 



136 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

Eg. Gone — 

A el. Gone! ye goddes! 

Eg. Alas! ytte ys toe true. 

Yee seynctes, hee dies awaie wythe myckle woe! 
Aella! what ? Aella! oh! hee lyves agen! 
A el. Cal mee notte Aella; I am hymme ne moe. 
Where ys shee gon awaie? Ah! Speake! how? when? 
Eg. I will. 

A el. Caparyson a score of stedes; flie, flie! 
Where ys shee ? Swythynne l speeke, or instante thou shalt die. 

These lines constitute one Rowleyan stanza. 
The play bears title as follows: 

Aella, 

A Tragycal Enterlude, 

or Discoorseynge Tragedie, 

Wrotenn bie 

Thomas Rowleie; 

Plaiedd before 

Mastre Canynge, 

Atte hys howse nempte the Rodde Lodge; 

Alsoe before the Duke of Norfolck, 

Johan Howard. 

In all England there was not at that time enough 
scholarship to know that in the reign of Edward IV 
the only theatrical performances were religious 
Mystery or Miracle plays done by monks in the 
churches, and that such a thing as a secular play 
was unknown until almost a century later. Hun- 

1 Quickly. 



THE RISING FLAME 137 

dreds of men from the universities knew the his- 
tories of the Greek and Roman dramas and could 
discourse learnedly about Greek prosody, and not 
one knew the drama of his own country or the 
history of his country's language. 

There are thirteen different measures in "Aella," 
all (except the blank verse and the quatrain) being 
innovations in our metrical systems. First come, in 
different measures, two letters to Canynge purport- 
ing to have been written by Rowley and signed with 
his name. The second hints at the theory, held by 
Chatterton, of poetry as an art; that is, of art poetry 
as distinguished from mere verse. "Verse may be 
good," he says, "but poetry wants more, a boundless 
subject and a worthy song of it"; and he rails at the 
scholars that hold to a literal view of everything 
and have no idealism. "Instead of mounting on a 
winged horse," he goes on, having an eye to the rule- 
and-compass poetasters of his own day, "You on a 
cart-horse drive in doleful course." 

1 Canynge and I from common course dissent, 
We ride the steed, but give to him the rein, 

Nor will between crazed moldering books be pent, 
But soar on high, amid the sunbeams' sheen. 

"An Entroductionne" of two stanzas follows, and 
then the "Personnes Represented": 

1 Modernized. 



138 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

Aella, bie Thomas Rowleie, Preeste, the Aucthoure. 
Celmonde, John Iscamm, Preeste. 
Hurra, Syrr Thybbotte Gorges, Knyghte. 

Birtha, Mastre Edwarde Canynge. 

Odherr Parties bie Knyghtes, Mynstrelles, &c. 

The play begins with a brief soliloquy by Celmonde 
in which he resents his fate that he must see the 
woman he has loved become the wife of another, and 
then follow the wedding festivities, varied with songs 
that are amongthe ablest examples of Chatterton's art. 
Few English poets have had equal power over melodi- 
ous speech and few have had so much prescience 
about the subtle co-relations between music and 
poetry. Indeed, the purely musical phase of modern 
English poetry may be said to have begun with him. 

The first of the songs in "Aella" is a simple 
pastoral dialogue between a country maiden and her 
swain, but the lilt of it is extraordinary, the effect 
being managed to some degree through the use of 
the trochaic measure, the musical possibilities of 
which Chatterton was the first to discover. 

Tourne thee to thie Shepsterr swayne ; 
Bryghte sonne has ne droncke the dewe 
From the floures of yellowe hue; 
Tourne thee, Alyce, backe agayne. 

No, bestoikerre, I wylle go, 
Softlie tryppynge o'ere the mees, 
Lyche the sylver-footed doe, 
Seekeynge shelterr yn grene trees. 



THE RISING FLAME 139 

See the moss-growne daisey'd banke, 
Pereynge ynne the streme belowe; 
Here we'lle sytte, yn dewie danke; 
Tourne thee, Alyce, do notte goe. 

It is chiefly the spelling that is a bar to the easy- 
reading and swift appreciation of Chatterton. To 
modernize these stanzas requires scarcely an effort. 
If we know that "bestoikerre" means deceiver and 
"mees" means meadows, there is not a line in it 
that cannot be understood by a child. 

Aella praises the song, but asks for one that "mar- 
riage blessings tells." 

"In marriage, blessings are but few, I trowe," 
comments the embittered Celmonde in a cynical 
aside. The minstrels sing: 

Fyrste Mynstrelle 

The boddynge flourettes bloshes atte the lyghte, 
The mees be sprenged wyth the yellowe hue; 
Ynn daiseyd mantels ys the mountayne dyghte; 
The nesh yonge coweslepe bendethe wyth the dewe; 
The trees enlefed, yntoe Heavenne straughte, 
Whenn gentle wyndes doe blowe, to whestlyng dynne ys broughte. 

The evenynge commes, and brynges the dewe alonge; 
The roddie welkynne sheeneth to the eyne; 
Arounde the alestake Mynstrelles synge the songe; 
Yonge ivie rounde the doore poste do entwyne; 
I laie mee onn the grasse; yette, to mie wylle, 
Albeytte alle ys fayre, there Iacketh somethynge stylle. 



140 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

Second Mynstrelle 
So Adam thoughtenne, whann, ynn Paradyse, 
All Heavenn and Erthe dyd hommage to hys mynde; 
Ynn Womman alleyne mannes pleasaunce lyes; 
As instrumentes of joie were made the kynde. 
Go, take a wyfe untoe thie armes, and see 
Wynter, and brownie hylles, wyll have a charme for thee. 

Tbyrde Mynstrelle 
Whanne Autumpne blake and sonne-brente doe appere, 
Wyth hys goulde honde guylteynge the falleynge lefe, 
Bryngeynge oppe Wynterr to folfylle the yere 
Beerynge uponne hys backe the riped shefe; 
Whan al the hyls wythe woddie sede ys whyte; 
Whanne levynne-fyres and lemes do mete from far the syghte; 

Whann the fayre apple, rudde as even skie, 
Do bende the tree unto the fructyle grounde; 
When joicie peres, and berries of blacke die, 
Doe daunce yn ayre, and call the eyne arounde; 
Thann, bee the even foule, or even fayre, 
Meethynckes mie hartys joie ys steynced with somme care. 

Seconde Mynstrelle 
Angelles bee wrogte to bee of neidher kynde; 
Angelles alleyne fromme chafe desyre bee free: 
Dheere ys a somwhatte evere yn the mynde, 
Yatte, wythout wommanne, cannot stylled bee; 
Ne seyncte yn celles, botte, havynge blodde and tere, 
Do fynde the spryte to joie on syghte of wommanne fayre: 

Wommen bee made, notte for hemselves botte manne, 
Bone of hys bone, and chyld of hys desire; 
Fromme an ynutylle membere fyrste beganne, 



THE RISING FLAME 141 

Ywroghte with moche of water, lyttele fyre; 
Therefore theie seke the fyre of love, to hete 
The milkyness of kynde, and make hemselves complete. 

Albeytte, wythout wommen, menne were pheeres 
To salvage kynde, and wulde botte lyve to slea, 
Botte wommenne efte the spryghte of peace so cheres, 
Tochelod yn Angel joie heie Angeles bee; 
Go, take thee swythyn to thie bedde a wyfe, 
Bee bante or blessed hie yn proovynge marryage lyfe. 

It may seem superfluous to attempt any modern 
version of this beautiful poem, since with slight 
changes in its spelling most of the words are familiar 
in our every-day speech; but to show how this is 
and to ease the reading I give some of the most 
significant stanzas a garb more familiar if less 
harmonious: 

When Autumn bleak and sunburnt doth appear, 
With his gold hand gilding the falling leaf, 
Bringing up Winter to fulfil the year, 
Bearing upon his back the ripened sheaf, 
When all the hills with woolly seed are white, 
When lightning-fires and gleams do meet from far the sight; 

When the fair apples, red as evening sky, 
Down bend the tree unto the fruitful ground, 
When juicy pears and berries of black dye 
Do dance in air, and call the eyes around; 
Then, be the evening foul or be it fair, 
Methinks my heart's delight is marred with some dark care. 



142 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

And the last stanza: 

Albeit, without woman, men were peers 
To savage kind, and would but live to slay; 
But woman that the soul of peace so cheers, 
Wrapped in angelic joy wings her high way; 
Go, take thee quickly to thy bed a wife, 
Be cursed or highly blessed in proving married life. 

This song of the seasons is followed by "Anodher 
Mynstrelles Songe," attributed to Syr Thybbot 
Gorges. It has the swinging beat and exquisite 
musical adjustment that characterize all the Rowley 
lyrics. For the meter there are in a way two English 
precedents, something like it though crudely wrought, 
one to be found in that curious and mysterious four- 
teenth century exotic, "The Coke's Tale of Game- 
lyn," once ascribed to Chaucer; the other in the old 
English ballad, "The Blind Beggar's Daughter of 
Bednall Green." But while these two unknown 
poets made some use of the amphibrach foot as here, 
Chatterton was the first of modern singers to perceive 
the musical potentialities of occasional syncopation, 
and to weave it into a melody, here extremely blithe- 
some and taking: 

As Elynour bie the green lesselle l was syttynge, 

As from the sones hete she harried, 2 
She sayde, as herr whytte hondes whyte hosen was knyttynge, 

What pleasure ytt ys to be married! 

1 lesselle — lattice. 2 harried — hurried. 



THE RISING FLAME 143 

Mie husbande, Lorde Thomas, a forrester boulde, 

As ever clove pynne, 1 or the baskette, 
Does no cherysauncys 2 from Elynour houlde, 

I have ytte as soone as I aske ytte. 

Whann I lyved wyth my fadre yn merrie Clowd-dell, 
Tho' twas at my liefe 3 to mynde spynnynge, 

I stylle wanted somethynge, botte whatte ne coulde telle, 
Mie lorde fadres barbde * haulle han ne wynnynge. 5 

Eche mornynge I ryse, doe I sette mie maydennes, 

Somme to spynn, somme to curdell, somme bleachynge, 

Gyff 8 any new entered doe aske for mie aidens, 7 
Thann swythynne 8 you fynde mee a teachynge. 

Lorde Walterre, mie fadre, he loved me welle, 

And nothynge unto mee was nedeynge, 
Botte schulde I agen goe to merrie Cloud-dell 

In sothen 9 twoulde bee wythoute redeynge. 10 

Shee sayde, and lorde Thomas came over the lea, 
As hee the fatte derkynnes u was chacynge, 

Shee putte uppe her knyttynge, and to hym wente shee; 
So wee leave hem bothe kyndelie embracynge. 

Here and there in the tragedy are stanzas of 
extraordinary beauty and strength. For instance, 

1 Clove pin or the basket refers to targets at rustic archery matches. 

2 cherisauncys — comforts. a liefe — at my choice. 

4 barbde haulle — hall hung with armor. 

5 Wynnynge — could not be won there. 

6 Gyff — If. 7 Aidens — Help. 
8 Swythynne — Quickly. 9 Sothen — faith. 

10 Redeynge — redeing. The line means "In faith it would be without good 
counsel, ill-advised." " Derkynnes — deer. 



144 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

in a soliloquy of Celmonde's just after Aella has 
gone forth to meet the Danes: 

Hope, holy sister, sweeping through the skies, 
In crown of gold, and robe of lily white 
That broadly on the gentle breezes flies, 
Meeting from distance the enraptured sight, 
Although thou often takest thy high flight 
Wrapped in a mist and with thy sweet eyes blind, 
Now comest thou to me with starry light; 
Unto thy vest red sunbeams thou dost bind; 
The Summer-tide, the month of May, appear 
With cunning skill upon thy wide robe painted clear. 1 

Aella delivers a tremendous battle speech be- 
fore his army, a speech that makes one think 
of Shakespeare's Henry before the battle of 
Agincourt, really a great speech. I quote the end 
of it: 

I say no more; your souls the rest will say, 
Your souls will show that Bristol is their place; 
To honor's house I need not mark the way, 
In your own hearts ye may the foot-path trace. 
'Tween fate and us there is but little space; 
The time is now to prove yourselves. Be men! 
Draw forth the burnished bill with festive grace! 
Rouse, like a wolf when rousing from his den! 
Thus I pluck forth my weapon! Go, thou sheath! 
I'll put it not in place till it is sick with death! 

1 This and other selections following I have modernized. 



THE RISING FLAME 145 

Soldiers. On, Aella, on! We long for bloody fray, 
We long to hear the raven sing in vain. 
On, Aella onl We surely gain the day 
When thou dost lead us to the deadly plainl 

Celmonde tells of the battle, of the prowess of Aella 
and the triumphing Saxon arms, and in his story is 
this passage: 

Bright sun had in his ruddy robes been dight; 

From the red East he flitted with his train; 

The hours drew aside the veil of night, 

Her sable tapestry was rent in twain. 

The dancing streaks bedecked the heavens wide plain, 

And on the dew did smile with shimmering eye. 

Celmonde is something like Franz Moor; just be- 
fore he starts on his despicable errand he has a 
soliloquy that reasons of good and evil much after 
the manner of Schiller's villain, in which he concludes 
that 

" — eternal fame — it is but air 
Bred in the phantasy and only living there." 

And again: 

Albeit everything in life conspire 
To tell me of the fault I now should do, 
Yet would I recklessly assuage my fire, 
And the same means, as I shall now, pursue. 
The qualities I from my parents drew 
Were blood and murder, mastery and war; 
These I will hold to now, and heed no moe 
A wound in honor than a body-scar. 



146 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

The song that is sung before Birtha mourning for 
the absent Aella, though no doubt suggested by 
Ophelia's song in Hamlet, 

His beard was white as snow, etc. 

has, nevertheless, lyrical and other qualities that 
transcend in interest any considerations of possible 
plagiarism. Chatterton had the soul of a musician 
and such a sense of sound values as no English poet 
before him had ever displayed. In this song, for 
instance, whoever has interest in the development 
of our modern system of poetry may note the appear- 
ance of the designed use of the rest towards a certain 
musical effect as in Swinburne and others in these 
times. The tempo here is intended to be slow and 
stately, as befits the mournful theme, and it is se- 
cured by the one means of the interposed rest at regu- 
lar intervals. I will give two stanzas and then show 
the musical theory they are built upon. 

O! synge untoe mie roundelaie, 
O! droppe the brynie teare wythe mee, 
Daunce ne moe atte hallie daie, 
Lycke a reynynge ryver bee; 

Mie love ys dedde, 

Gon to hys death-bedde, 

Al under the wyllowe tree. 

See! the whyte moone sheenes onne hie; 
Whyterre ys mie true loves shroude; 



THE RISING FLAME 



H7 



Whyterre yanne the mornynge skie, 
Whyterre yanne the evenynge cloude; 
Mie love ys dedde, 
Gon to hys deathe-bedde, 
AI under the wyllowe tree. 



This has the 

f 

O ! sing 



a ? 



following musical scheme 

If 

my 



un 



r 

to 



f 
I 

round 



f f 



lay, 



f r 

O! drop 

-1 P 
I 

Dance 

■• r 

Like 



P P 
>> I 

the brin 

t r 

no more 



r 

tear 

r 

hoi 



with me, 



i - day, 



If f I 



f r 

My love 



f f 

ning riv 



f 

be ; 



p 
I 

dead, 



- r I 

gone 

f f I 



r If 



All un 



to his death - bed 

P P P \ P P 

der the will - low tree. 



+8 




THOMAS 


CHATTERTON 




§ 


1 f 

See ! 


the 


f =1 

white 


P 

moon 


1 - r If 

shines on 


r 

high, 


*1 


r 1 

Whit - 


er 


P 
1 

is 


If 

my 


r If 

true love' s 


f 

shroud ; 


1 


r 1 

Whit - 


er 


f 
1 

than 


If 

the 


r 1 ' 

morn - ing 


f 
1 

sky; 


"1 


r 1 

Whit - 


er 


r 

than 


If 

the 


r 1 f 

even - in? 


1 
cloud. 



The device of the rest at the beginning of the line 
creates the impression of solemn utterance and slow 
tempo, and materially influences the total effect. 
The song is one of the most melancholy in the lan- 
guage and one of the sweetest of sound. To manage 
the music of words to a melody so simple and still 
so moving is the gift of the gods. Few of our race 
have had it. 

Comme, wythe acorne-coppe and thorne, 
Drayne mie hartys blodde awaie; 
Lyfe and all yttes goode I scorne, 
Daunce bie nete, or feaste by daie. 

Mie love ys dedde, 

Gon to hys death-bedde, 

Al under the wyllowe tree. 



THE RISING FLAME 149 

Waterre wytches, crownede wythe reytes, 
Bere mee to yer leathalle tyde. 
I die! I comme! mie true love waytes. 
Thos the damselle spake and dyed. 

Some other instances of the poet's marvelous skill 
may be given from this poem: 

1 The world is dark with night, the winds are still; 
Faintly the moon her pallid light makes gleam; 
The risen sprites the silent churchyard fill, 
With elfin fairies joining in the dream; 
The forest shineth with the silver leme. 

I have a mind winged with the lightning's plume. 

1 This darkness doth affray my woman's breast; 

How sable is the spreading sky arrayed! 

Happy the cottager who lives to rest 

Nor is at Night's all-daunting hue dismayed. 

The stars do scantily the sable braid, 

Wide are the silver gleams of comfort wove. 

Speak, Celmonde, doth it make thee not afraid ? 

The mornynge 'gyns alonge the easte to sheene; 
Darklinge the lyghte doe onne the waters plaie; 
The feynte rodde leme slowe creepeth oere the greene, 
Toe chase the merkyness of nyghte awaie; 
Swifte flie the howers thatte wylle brynge oute the daie; 
The softe dewe falleth onne the greeynge grasse; 
The shepster mayden, dyghtynge her arraie, 
Scante sees her vysage yn the wavie glasse. 
1 Modernized. 



150 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

Lest so fine a stanza should be lost for a few 
tricks of spelling I give it also in modern dress: 

The morn begins along the east to shine, 
Darkling the light doth on the waters play, 
The faint red gleam slow creepeth o'er the green 
To chase the murkiness of night away; 
Swift fly the hours that will bring out the day; 
The soft dew falleth on the growing grass; 
The shepherd-maiden, dighting her array, 
Scarce sees her image in the wavy glass. 

A certain power of condensed and pithy expres- 
sion is apparent throughout this remarkable play. 
The characters habitually say no more than they 
ought to say and speak pointedly. The temptation 
to spin out the last scene with death-bed speeches 
would have been irresistible except to an artist. 
There is a kind of eloquent brevity about the scene 
as Chatterton handles it, reminding one of the Greek 
tragedies. Mr. Swinburne has hardly done better 
in such a notable ending as that of "Rosamund." 
When Birtha appears and in wonderfully few lines 
the situation is made clear, this ensues: 

Aella. Oh! I die contente. (Dieth) 
Birtha. Oh! ys mie Aella dedde ? 

Oh! I wylle make hys grave mie vyrgyn spousal bedde. 

(Birtha feyncteth.) 

Dodsley did not accept "Aella," the tragedy re- 
posed in the possession of Catcott, and the world 



THE RISING FLAME 15 1 

had no knowledge of it until after the great strange 
mind that wrought it had left these shifting scenes. 
With another brief correspondence we have more 
to do. After the failure with Dodsley, whatever 
might have been the cause of it, Chatterton was 
more than ever determined to give Rowley to the 
world, and thereupon faced a problem that has 
puzzled and sometimes overwhelmed many an older 
writer. He must find a medium; and for a boy 
fifteen years old, apprentice to an obscure lawyer in 
a provincial town, the task was of the hardest. In 
the Rowley romance the priest-poet and hero was 
befriended and helped by a wealthy, judicious patron, 
the friend of art and artists. Nothing could be 
more natural than for the reincarnated Rowley (if 
I may use that term) to seek a rich man of taste, 
intelligence, and literary discernment that might be 
the reincarnated Canynge. One such there was in 
England by chance and not by merit raised to that 
eminence. Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, among 
his many posings found time to pose as a patron of 
literature. He had a private press at Strawberry 
Hill, he maintained a friendship with Gray of the 
Elegy and with other literary men of the day, and 
as a dilettante wrote some things himself. He was 
rich, eminent, and influential. Moreover there was a 
particular reason why Chatterton should be attracted 
to him, for Walpole had not long before fabricated 



152 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

his Otranto disguise and gone forth in it to the pub- 
lic, and he might reasonably, therefore, be thought to 
have a sympathetic feeling for the like masqueraders. 
Chatterton determined to appeal to Horace Walpole. 
The strange fact about the correspondence that 
followed is that Barrett, the strait-laced surgeon, 
seems to have known all about Chatterton's share in 
it and to have, in a measure at least, directed his 
young friend's course. Certainly the surgeon drafted 
some of the letters and he could hardly have drafted 
them without knowing the whole history of the 
affair. Here, as before, then, we come upon this 
silent, stealthy figure as the cloaked director of the 
visible moves. Perhaps Barrett was the real knave 
of the piece; perhaps he suggested Walpole and knew 
all along the character of the pretended manuscripts; 
who shall say? Walpole's "Anecdotes of Painting" 
was then a highly esteemed fruitage of the Straw- 
berry Hill garden and offered an easy avenue of 
approach to that home of the muses. Consequently 
Chatterton addressed him thus: 

Sir, — Being versed a little in antiquitys, I have met with 
several curious manuscripts, among which the following may be 
of service to you, in any future edition of your truly entertaining 
"Anecdotes of Painting." In correcting the mistakes (if any) in 
the notes you will greatly oblige 

Your most humble servant, 

Thomas Chatterton. 
Bristol, March 25th, Corn Street. 



THE RISING FLAME 153 

The manuscript accompanying purported to be 
a transcription of one entitled "The Ryse of Peync- 
teyne yn Englande, wroten by T. Rowleie, 1469, for 
Mastre Canynge." The notes cunningly intro- 
duced the whole Rowley romance and contained a 
bait for the owner of the Strawberry Hill press, for 
they said that whoever might publish the Rowley 
poems would lay the Englishman, the antiquary, 
and the poet under an eternal obligation. 

It was this boy's fate all his life to deal with the 
fraudulent or the foolish or with those that were 
both. If Walpole had really possessed a modicum 
of the literary acumen to which he pretended, or if 
he had been a man of any worth, there would be a 
different story to tell of Thomas Chatterton. At first 
the author of Otranto was vastly taken with the dis- 
covery of Rowley. He replied to Chatterton in an 
effusive letter, regarded the "Ryse of Peyncteyne" 
as a wonderful addition to his store of knowledge, 
and intimated a willingness to print the Rowley 
poems. 

Thus encouraged, Chatterton wrote again, reveal- 
ing his situation as a poor boy, the son of a widow, 
the apprentice of an attorney, but with an ambition 
for a literary career. All that he said we shall never 
know, Walpole having, for reasons of his own, de- 
stroyed a part of his letter, but it is certain that he 
spoke quite frankly of the facts in his case; Walpole 



154 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

has admitted as much. He enclosed another prose 
manuscript and a specimen of Rowley's poetry, 
being the Ode to War already quoted from "The 
Battle of Hastings." Walpole had not counted on 
dealing with penniless sons of obscure widows; the 
boy's candor utterly changed his attitude. He 
showed the manuscripts to Gray of the Elegy and to 
Gray's friend Mason. They said the work was not 
of the fifteenth century; whereupon Walpole favored 
Chatterton with a letter of cold advice, declining to 
be of any assistance to him and telling him with 
brutal irony to labor hard at being a scrivener and 
when he had amassed a fortune at that trade he 
might turn his attention to literary studies. 

But he kept the manuscripts, that is the strange 
thing; he kept the manuscripts. What for only 
heaven knows; perhaps to copy and use them, a 
dastardly act, of which, by his own confession, he 
was quite capable. Chatterton wrote thrice, the 
last two letters being courteous but firm demands, for 
the return of his property. Walpole afterward de- 
clared that he was preparing to go to Paris when 
these epistles arrived and, doubtless, in the stress and 
confusion of that momentous and necessary work, 
the intrusive protests of a mere apprentice of the 
lower orders were overlooked. The last of the let- 
ters was dated July 24, and in Horace Walpole's 
opinion it was "singularly impertinent," being ad- 



THE RISING FLAME 155 

dressed by a very common person to one of the 
nobility. It read: 

Sir, — I cannot reconcile your behaviour to me with the notions 
I once entertained of you. I think myself injured, Sir: and did 
not you know of my circumstances you would not dare to treat 
me thus. I have sent twice for a copy of the MS. — no answer 
from you. An explanation or excuse for your silence would oblige, 

Thomas Chatterton. 

Walpole said afterward that on the receipt of 
this revolutionary and insulting communication he 
took his pen in hand and began a letter of admoni- 
tion and expostulation, but probably concluding that 
the young ruffian was beyond hope and incorrigible, 
he flung the letter he had begun into the fire, and 
snapping up Chatterton's manuscripts and letters 
he returned them without a word. In later years, 
when he came to deny that he had ever received 
certain of these letters, the fact that he did not 
have them was of use to him. In the minds of some 
persons it helped to relieve the figure he cut, which 
was really one of the sorriest in literary history. The 
boy was perfectly right in his conclusion that if 
Walpole had not t known of the condition of his 
correspondent he would not have dared to use him so. 
Whatever might have been the verdict of Gray and 
Mason, there could be no excuse for returning the 
manuscripts without an acknowledgment, and no 
possible palliation for retaining them so long. Even 



156 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

Coleridge when he had fallen from grace and 
turned reactionary gagged at this. But, on the 
whole, the earl of Orford has escaped lightly; on 
the whole, the abundant literature of denuncia- 
tion that the Chatterton story has called forth 
seems to have been unevenly distributed, and one 
would be pleased to record that a part of the wrath 
that fell upon the memory of the young appren- 
tice had been reserved for the knavish nobleman. 

The fall of his hopes went nigh for the moment to 
crush the boy. He had counted so much upon the 
modern Canynge as his friendly helper in the task 
he had set for himself and there had been so much 
reason for his faith! This was the one man of the 
age that held such a position, or seemed to hold it, 
as the builder of St. Mary Redcliffe had held; the 
man of taste and wealth, the friend of poets, the man 
that had printed at his own expense "The Elegy in 
a Country Churchyard," the poem that Chatterton 
felt Rowley could far surpass. And this man would 
not see, this man thought the obvious and trite reflec- 
tions of Gray were better than the divine art that he 
could show him! And the cold insult he had en- 
dured — that was only because he was poor and 
obscure, that was a gratuitous reminder that he was 
far below the caste to which the noblemen of the 
realm belonged, that he was only a boy of the lower 
classes and must take what treatment his betters 



THE RISING FLAME 157 

might please to give him, that he must not dream of 
addressing them. The iron entered his soul as he 
thought of it. The world was against him, the 
channels to recognition and expression were solely 
possessed by the fortunate; henceforth, a solitary 
and friendless waif, he was flung in a desperate 
struggle against those invincible barriers. 

The villainy you teach me I will execute and it shall go hard 
but I will better the instruction. 

He had been flogged for reading and dreaming, 
flogged for writing poetry, upbraided by his master 
for wasting his time in study, cajoled and mistreated 
by the scheming Barrett and the foolish Catcott, 
neglected by every one that should have taken an 
intelligent interest in him, enslaved to a drudging 
occupation, grossly and wantonly insulted by the 
man that was supposed to be the criterion of the 
literary taste of his day, reminded that he was not 
of the class that might be allowed to succeed, thrust 
back among the unthinking hinds to whose lowly 
ways he properly belonged, made in one flash to 
see how great a gulf separated him from the elect, 
scorned for his beautiful work that his age would 
have none of, defeated on every hand. And still 
the indomitable spirit burned high within him, still 
exalted by a sense of his calling, the insuperable 
knowledge of his gift, and the fervor for expression, 



158 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

he toiled on alone. But from this time he had less 
regard than ever for the means by which he should 
wring from the hard world the recognition that merely 
because he was young and poor that world had 
denied to him. 

The restless spirit of this strange being had, mean- 
time, found another and wholly different channel 
for its activities. I have said something of his 
intense interest in the political affairs of his day. In 
these all the part of his nature that was not dreamer 
and artist was now deeply engrossed. The time 
was ripe for one of his faith. The England of his 
day was passing through one of those convulsive 
struggles between surviving feudalism and young 
democracy from which have come, by slow degrees, 
the present emancipated race. It was, in fact, one 
of the dying tremors of absolutism, though nobody 
of that day so viewed it. For a few years the foolish 
George III had been on the throne doing many foolish 
things, and now with characteristic folly and obstinacy 
he was standing out for the medieval right of the 
monarch to choose his own ministers, no matter how 
distasteful they might be to the nation. Past this 
blockade, in a way not without precedent in human 
affairs, progress was unwittingly furthered by an 
obtuse prejudice as much as by the agitation carried 
on by the popular leaders. The minister most de- 
tested happened to be a Scot, and the cardinal prin- 



THE RISING FLAME 159 

ciples of the Englishman of that day were to fear 
God and hate the Scotch. We should be profoundly 
thankful that the Scotch had traits offensive to the 
English mind; otherwise England might to-day have 
a constitution like Germany's. The Scotchman for 
whom the foolish king stood fastwas the Earl of Bute, 
a well-enough meaning man, no doubt, but deficient 
in tact and unluckily the target of much abuse be- 
cause he was a favorite with that acrid and unpopu- 
lar person, the king's mother. Bute was prime 
minister, a great many things went awry, as things 
will go, more or less; the premier was accused, on 
plausible grounds, of incompetency, and a hot agita- 
tion began to induce the king to remove him. In- 
evitably the discussion verged upon other delicate 
points concerning ruler and ruled, the spirit of revolt 
that presently flamed out in the American and French 
revolutions was tugging at the minds of men, and 
soon there arose a leader capable of directing the 
new movement and making himself its idol. 

This was the misunderstood John Wilkes. For 
almost a century and a half English writers have 
been pleased to denounce this man as a demagogue, 
but in the clearer perspective of time and the better 
lights we have on such things we need not be too 
sure of his demagogy. With all its faults, many 
things in the life of John Wilkes seem eminently 
respectable. He cheerfully endured imprisonment 



160 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

and risked far worse for the sake of a good cause. 
Almost everything he stood for has had the infrangible 
endorsement of posterity and the honor of a place 
in the British constitution. No one can now doubt 
that in preventing him from taking his seat because 
he had criticized the king, the House of Commons 
was absolutely in the wrong, absolutely guilty of a 
tyrannical and reactionary excess. That Wilkes was 
bitterly hated by the court party and that the court 
interest then, as always, had the loudest voice and 
wrote (and distorted) the most history need not con- 
cern us. The king and the monarchial interest 
generally were engaged in supporting and enforcing 
a purely feudal institution. They were bravely 
opposed by one man. He may not have been very 
nice about some things; liberty habitually chooses the 
uncouth and the extravagant to wield her weapons; 
conventional men and those that travel on the main 
trodden highways of propriety seldom feel much of 
her fire. Moreover, in all history invariably the 
man that has stood for the common people has been 
pictured by the powers of reaction as a depraved 
person; he must be depraved or he would not oppose 
the interests of those divinely appointed to be fortu- 
nate and to possess the earth. Whatever defects of 
character John Wilkes may have had, he did stand 
for democracy, he did battle with hand and brain 
and voice against tyranny and the backward step, 



THE RISING FLAME 161 

he did effect an advance, and for these tremendous 
services the judicious can afford to overlook the worst 
that has been charged against him. 

Into the fight then waging for democracy this boy 
threw himself with all the ardor of his soul. It was 
a course that had naturally the strongest attractions 
for him; the boy that gave his last pennies to the 
poor of Bristol could not feel otherwise. Besides, 
among his convictions were a profound contempt for 
convention and a prophetic sense of the future of 
mankind. The great poets that have made the paths 
whereon our poetry has traveled have been of this 
stamp: Marlowe, Milton the Republican, Shelley, 
Swinburne; the innovators have been the radicals, 
the men impatient of feudalism, indignant against 
the trammels of caste and established conditions, 
rebels and often outcasts. That a man should feel 
beauty enough to be a great poet he must feel deeply 
also for men. Always the poets have been mighty 
on the side of democracy if they have been great 
enough to endure; as do but think of Dante, Mas- 
singer, Lessing, even Schiller, and above all the 
supreme light of Victor Hugo, besides the great 
group we have already spoken of. Who knows 
but it was this that cost Surrey his head ? And 
for all his later backsliding Coleridge was of the 
valiant brood so long as opium had left his wits 
clear. In our own day we have seen poets become 



1 62 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

socialists like Morris, and a whole brood of Amer- 
ican singers; fervent champions of the broadest 
democracy like Whitman; fiery and uncontrollable 
revolutionists like Swinburne; friends of the 
oppressed and the suffering like William Watson. 
He was of this angelic brotherhood, he too, this boy; 
he was for democracy, and the keen sword of his 
satire was out against king, prime-minister, and all 
surviving oppression. 

We accept these things now as a matter of course, 
but consider for a moment the strength of character 
and the sincerity of purpose necessary for such a 
choice at such a time. For the champions of re- 
action were pensions and preferments, soft places 
and the favor of the court and of the powerful in 
a day when the ablest writer could hardly expect 
without aid to earn a bare subsistence. For those 
that wrote on the patriotic side was nothing but 
starvation pittances and the danger of prosecution. 
To an ambitious young man just beginning his career 
as a writer, one service ofFered an easy ascent to 
comfort and fame and the other held forth poverty 
and obscurity. That Chatterton never hesitated in 
the face of such temptations is a fact clearly entitling 
him to our utmost respect; although here, as in so 
many other instances, the recognition due him has 
always been denied. 

There was ample occasion for the enlisting of any 



THE RISING FLAME 163 

democrat. Wilkes, a member of Parliament, had 
been editor of a weekly newspaper called the North 
Briton. In this he ventured in 1763 to print some 
criticism of a speech of the king's. He was arrested 
but pleaded his Parliamentary privileges, and after 
some days in the Tower was released. He there- 
upon reprinted the issue of the North Briton that 
had criticized the King, and the House of Commons 
expelled him and passed a special act to provide for 
his prosecution. Wilkes was then on the Continent. 
He was prosecuted for his attack on the King, and 
also for printing the "Essay on Woman," 1 found 
guilty, and, not appearing for sentence, was out- 
lawed. He returned to England, stood for Middlesex, 
was triumphantly elected, and over the vital issue thus 
created the conservative, land-owning, king-worship- 
ing Commons and the progressive element among 
the people were locked in a memorable struggle that 
lasted for years. The House refused to admit Wilkes 
and declared his seat vacant. He had in the mean- 
time surrendered himself to the process of the law, 
had been fined £1000, sentenced to twenty-two 
months imprisonment, and shut up in jail. Middle- 
sex promptly re-elected him; the Commons refused 
to admit him and again declared his seat vacant. 

'It has often been represented that Wilkes was the author of this obscene 
poem. The real author was Thomas Potter, son of the Archbishop of Can- 
terbury. But thirteen copies of it were printed on Wilkes's press, and this 
fact was seized as a pretext for prosecuting Wilkes. 



164 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

By this time people were in a white heat elsewhere as 
well as in London. Twice again Middlesex elected 
the man of its choice; twice again the Commons 
rejected him. But on the last occasion the House 
went farther and a little too far. Other candidates 
had been put up against Wilkes and one of these, 
though receiving a mere handful of votes, was de- 
clared elected. Naturally the country burst into furi- 
ous indignation over this singularly barefaced outrage 
on the security of elections. Wilkes ending soon after- 
ward, that is to say in April, 1770, his term of impris- 
onment, became the most popular man in England. 

It is necessary to understand this situation to see 
how it appealed to and affected Chatterton. While 
the warfare was at its hottest he was pouring out a 
flood of metrical satires and prose articles, assailing 
with vindictive bitterness the government, the Dowa- 
ger Princess of Wales (the king's mother), the beef- 
witted Duke of Grafton, even, so far as the prevail- 
ing conditions allowed, the dull king himself. For 
these effusions he presently found a ready and appre- 
ciative market in London, and in a short time he was 
sending them regularly to the Freeholders' Magazine y 
a periodical in Wilkes's interest. 

They were worth all the attention they received 
and more, for in that storm and stress of politics 
appears now only one other light so clear as this; 
only one other among all the champions engaged in 



THE RISING FLAME 165 

the controversy wrote more powerful English, and 
that one was the redoubtable Junius himself. An 
extraordinary power over bitter and sarcastic utter- 
ance made the boy a formidable warrior in these 
lists, and he had appeared but once or twice in the 
columns of the Freeholders' Magazine before the 
discerning editor was looking eagerly for the com- 
munications of "D. B. of Bristol." 

Thus this boy, fifteen, sixteen years old, became 
one of the most ardent, zealous, and effective advo- 
cates of the democratic cause. It makes us smile 
now, that suggestion, because it seems so extrava- 
gant, and yet the fact is that by Wilkes and his friends, 
such as Beckford, Lord Mayor of London, the ser- 
vices of their Bristol lieutenant were recognized and 
prized when they had not the slightest suspicion 
that those clean shafts that went so far and shot so 
true were hurled by a slender apprentice in the office 
of a curmudgeon Bristol lawyer. 

He carried on all together, Rowley in poetry and 
prose, Canynge, Barrett, two Catcotts, the lawyer's 
office, the precedents, the parchments, Wilkes, the 
king, Grafton, and the rest, and almost every night 
between eight and ten (for these were the hours of 
his liberty) he was at his mother's house. The his- 
tory of the human mind reveals no other instance of 
an industry so prodigious and varied. Of these 
poems that have been preserved two full volumes 



1 66 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

are made, and his prose writings would easily fill a 
still larger volume, perhaps two, and this takes no 
account of his manuscripts that were destroyed at 
his death nor of the bulk of them that has otherwise 
perished. And all these works written in the space 
of about three years ! The thing is not in nature. To 
produce in one year a poem so perfect as "Aella," 
so well considered, carefully wrought, and ably man- 
aged, would be an achievement; but the year that 
saw "Aella" written saw the making of many other 
poems in the pseudo-antique dialect and in modern 
form, and a variety of able prose writings as well, 
and still his labors at Lambert's conscientiously 
performed, his nightly visit to his mother and sister, 
his reading and studying, his unending quest for 
books and knowledge, his disputations with the 
Catcotts. On what theory of cellular activity shall 
we account for all these things ? 

He found time also to form a little circle of friends 
or acquaintances that had or were made to have an 
interest in literature, probably the boy's conception 
of the best he could do in Bristol to imitate the wit- 
gatherings at the Mermaid. The others of this com- 
pany were, like Chatterton, called from employments 
ordinarily estranged from the muses. Thus Thomas 
Cary, one of the most promising among them, was 
by trade a maker of tobacco pipes, Henry Kator was 
a confectioner's apprentice, Mathew Mease was a 



THE RISING FLAME 167 

vintner, and so on. It appears that under Chatter- 
ton's inspiration all of these became interested in 
experiments in verse or prose and all must have been 
equally inspired by the hot young radical to follow 
with attention the course of political events in their 
country. He made also some acquaintance with 
the two leading organists of Bristol, one Broderip 
and one Allen, for he was in love with music and 
transported whenever he heard it. He also made a 
practise of listening to various noted clergymen of 
the time and subsequently of satirizing and ridicul- 
ing their sermons. He spared not even the august 
Dr. Newton, Bishop of Bristol, to whom he addressed 
a letter, still extant in manuscript, savagely assailing 
the prelate's views on non-resistance, the supreme 
authority of the sovereign and other Tory tenets. A 
cordial invitation to the Bishop to excommunicate 
for heresy the writer of the letter is one of its interest- 
ing features, but the best sentences contain the boy's 
frank, eloquent defense of liberty. Dr. Newton 
had called John Wilkes "a blasphemer" for criticiz- 
ing the king's ministers. "Turn over your own 
treatise on Revelation candidly," says Chatterton, 
"and tell me who is the most atrocious blasphemer, 
the man who denies the justice of God by maintain- 
ing the damnable doctrine of predestination, or he 
that justly ridicules the blunders, not the funda- 
mentals of religion." His extreme freedom with his 



1 68 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

pen and his power of stinging sarcasm must have 
come home to some of his victims. One night when 
he was returning from his mother's house a man 
sprang upon him, knocked him down and beat him, 
cursing him and telling him he would "spoil his 
writing arm." No other explanation appears of this 
incident, which is the only case in which Chatterton 
appeared in a scene of violence and this without his 
will. But it was an age when a blow or a duel was 
taken to be adequate repartee. The Wilkes partyhad 
many friends in Bristol but it had also bitter enemies. 
Probably what happened was that Chatterton had in 
his biting fashion lampooned some of these and an ag- 
grieved one responded after the manner of the times. 
In that day the shade of Pope still ruled the realm 
of poesy, and to emulate the Dunciad was esteemed 
the crown of the poet's earthly glory. When one suc- 
ceeded in adding to the dust heap of oblivion some- 
thing in heroic couplets that had an epigrammatic 
flavor the polite world cheered joyously. There was 
no more poetry in the mass of this stuff than there 
is perfume in paper flowers, but from Dryden to 
Chatterton you will search mostly in vain for any- 
thing else. It is not the least of the marvels of Chat- 
terton's story that in a time when the complacent 
verdict of the world had named one form as the 
supernal essence of poetic art he broke so far away 
and wrote in a style so different. But that was in 



THE RISING FLAME 169 

the Rowley poems. His satires, being designed for 
immediate consumption and effect, followed more 
or less the taste of his times. Churchill, a rather 
clever rhymer of licentious predilections, was es- 
teemed to have come nearest to the idol of the age. 
Most of Chatterton's satirical verses will be found to 
discount Churchill in wit and point and to be superior 
in aim. There has been preserved, unluckily, and 
incorporated with his poems, a mass of sketch-work 
with which from time to time he employed himself, 
as an artist makes idle hour studies, perhaps of leaves. 
But his serious efforts in political satire are worth 
attention as specimens of that not very valuable art. 
One, at least, has a touch of sarcasm far beyond 
the average of such compositions. It is called 
"Resignation" and begins with a mock apostrophe 
to that virtue, and then proceeds to advise the Duke 
of Grafton, prime minister, to share its calm delights 
and gratify the country by resigning his office. 

Hail, Resignation! 'tis from thee we trace 
The various villanies of power and place; 
When rascals, once but infamy and rags, 
Rich with a nation's ruin, swell their bags, 
Purchase a title and a royal smile, 
• And pay to be distinguishably vile; 

When big with self-importance thus they shine, 
Contented with their gleanings they resign! 
When ministers, unable to preside, 
The tottering vehicle no longer guide, 



170 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

The powerful Thane prepares to kick his Grace 

From all his glorious dignities of place; 

But still the honour of the action's thine, 

And Grafton's tender conscience can resign. 

Lament not, Grafton, that thy hasty fall 

Turns out a public happiness to all; 

Still by your emptiness of look appear 

The ruins of a man who used to steer; 

Still wear that insignificance of face, 

Which dignifies you more than power or place. 

There are about eight hundred lines of this, some 
of them of no moment; but the savage characteriza- 
tion of Bute still possesses interest for the curious, and 
here and there are passages of strong poetic merit. 
It is remarkable and clearly shows his innate con- 
victions that Chatterton was one of the earliest and 
most outspoken friends of the American Colonies. 
At the outset of their struggle, before the Boston tea- 
party, before the patriots had thought of indepen- 
dence, the cause that was presently to grow into 
revolution had stirred a profound sympathy in this 
boy's heart. Twice in "Resignation" he recurs to it. 

Alas! America, thy ruined cause 

Displays the ministry's contempt of laws. 

Unrepresented thou art tax'd, excised, 

By creatures much too vile to be despised; 

The outcasts of an ousted gang are sent 

To bless thy commerce with misgovernment. 

Whilst pity rises to behold thy fate, 

We see thee in this worst of troubles great; 



THE RISING FLAME 171 

Whilst anxious for thy wavering dubious cause, 
We give thy proper spirit due applause. 

The other reference is near the close: 

New to oppression and the servile chain, 
Hark how the wrong'd Americans complain. 
Whilst unregarded the petitions lie, 
And Liberty unnoticed swells her cry. 

Some of these productions, like "Kew Gardens," 
he did not publish at once, but laid by for a future 
purpose that was slowly taking shape in his mind; 
some he gave to Catcott and some were obviously 
mere practise work, partly for the entertainment of 
himself and the friends of his little wit-circle and 
partly to keep his hand in for his grand design. In 
some of his verses he ranged through the court and 
camp of his day, letting fly at every head in sight, 
cabinet ministers, actors, pseudo-scientists, scurvy 
poets, noblemen, and particularly at Dr. Samuel 
Johnson, whose violent reactionary principles and 
natural arrogance of temper made him an irresistible 
target for one of Chatterton's republican faith and 
nimble wit. He ridiculed unsparingly Johnson's 
unlucky tragedy of "Irene," and repeatedly jabbed 
at the good doctor's critical pretensions. The num- 
ber of eminent characters of his day that are brought 
into these verses is rather astonishing and shows how 
keenly he analyzed men and motives and how 
habituated he was to a close observation. His mind 



172 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

seemed to leap instantly to the salient characteristic 
of every man in the public eye, or to the weakest point 
in his armor. All the court party he lashed, but 
most he raged against Bute and Grafton. It was a 
time of much license in abusive speech — so long as 
one did not abuse the sacred majesty of the pin-head 
king — but the literature of the day reveals nothing 
more vitriolic than Chatterton's assaults upon these 
men. When he had made a dozen lines sufficiently 
contemptuous of the feudal champions he embalmed 
the matter in some poem and kept it by him ready to 
be lifted into action whenever occasion might demand. 
Thus many passages in "The Exhibition," an unpub- 
lished poem in the Bristol Museum, were transplanted 
to " Kew Gardens," and many others from " Kew 
Gardens" were reproduced in still another satire. 

He was busy also with many poems in the modern 
manner other than satires. For some reason never 
explained his mind turned often toward Africa, and 
he composed, at different times, a series of African 
eclogues or semi-narratives in rhymed couplets, 
"Narva and Mored," "Heccar and Gaira," and 
"The Death of Nicou." He wrote on a greatvariety 
of subjects and in a great variety of meters. "The 
Copernican System" (he was then studying astron- 
omy), "February, an Elegy," and the many songs, 
addresses, and elegiac verses indicate something of 
the vast range of his powers. I give a specimen of 
these songs — "The Invitation": 






THE RISING FLAME 173 

Away to the woodlands, away! 
The shepherds are forming a ring, 
To dance to the honour of May, 
And welcome the pleasures of Spring. 
The shepherdess labours a grace, 
And shines in her Sunday's array, 
And bears in the bloom of her face 
The charms and the beauties of May. 

Away to the woodlands, away! 

The shepherds are forming a ring, 

To dance to the honour of May, 

And welcome the pleasures of Spring. 

Away to the woodlands, away! 

And join with the amorous train: 

'Tis treason to labour to-day, 

Now Bacchus and Cupid must reign. 

With garlands of primroses made, 

And crown'd with the sweet blooming spray, 

Through woodland, and meadow, and shade, 

We'll dance to the honour of May. 

Away to the woodlands, away! 

And join with the amorous train: 

'Tis treason to labour to-day, 

Now Bacchus and Cupid must reign. 

He had a neat hand at the kind of love verses that 
were then esteemed the very flower of elegant wit, 
and produced a deal of them, counting those he made 
for his friend Baker to send to the beauteous Miss 
Hoyland and all he made on his own account to 
" Miss Burt, of Bristol," " Miss Clarke," " Miss C— ' ' 



174 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

and so on. He could write these things with a free 
soul, for it appears that while he liked the society of 
intelligent women and admired the sex he never was 
genuinely in love in his life, perhaps from lack of 
time. He also dealt in clever little pastorals and 
idyls after the manner of an age much given to metri- 
cal fripperies of this sort, but the odd fact is that in 
almost everything he wrote from grave to gay is a 
finished and masterly workmanship, and very often 
are lines that glow with the immortal fire in spite of 
their tawdry surroundings. The acknowledged poems 
being mostly mere momentary effusions, or else 
pot-boilers and hence of necessity in the debased 
style then current, are greatly inferior to the Rowley 
poems in which his genius had full wing-room 
to soar, and his infallible perceptions about art led 
him untrammeled beyond the comprehension of 
those dull times; but even the acknowledged poems 
have a certain merit. For instance, the elegies on the 
death of his old friend the usher Phillips have genu- 
ine feeling; the humorous verses have a clever 
diabolical wit, and occasional passages in the satires 
show a poetic substance entirely above and away 
from the subject. As take in the unpublished poem, 
"The Exhibition," the two lines (quoted by Dr. 
Gregory), referring to a celebrated organist of Bristol: 

"He keeps the passions with the sound in play 
And the soul trembles with the trembling key." 



THE RISING FLAME 1 75 

And the like flashes of beauty show here and there in 
other poems that are in themselves of little worth. 
Finally it may be noted that while he studied no 
Latin at Colston's and knew of it only what he had 
been able to gather by his unaided efforts, he essayed, 
with the help of a literal version, to make metrical 
translations of two of Horace's Odes, and did them 
not badly. A series of prose romances purporting 
to be taken from ancient Saxon or ancient British 
sources is added to but does not complete the list 
of his performances. 

Always amid these pursuits his cherished plan was 
maturing and he saw now that the time was at hand 
to put it into operation. The lawyer's office had 
become to his spirit an inexpressible burden. Lam- 
bert was a Gradgrind of a kind certain to produce 
revolt in any lad both sensitive and proud. As I have 
said, Chatterton made it a practise to visit his mother 
and sister almost every night. Lambert's office 
closed at eight o'clock. He was obliged to be in 
his employer's house by ten, so he had two hours for 
his visit. He was so fond of the little family that he 
would sometimes linger a moment beyond the time, 
or perhaps his mother would detain him, and then 
he would arise in haste, saying that he must go to 
get the scolding that he knew was in store for him. 
This Lambert was, in truth, a brutal person. He had 
little business, so Chatterton had in the office much 




176 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

time that was necessarily unoccupied in service; but 
Lambert violently objected to any use the boy made 
of this time. First he forbade his apprentice to 
write on the office stationery. As Chatterton received 
no wages this was near to be an embargo on his 
singing until Mrs. Edkins came to his relief and gave 
him a little money. Instead of appeasing Lambert 
this seemed to anger him the more. 

"How did you get that paper?" he thundered 
when he discovered Chatterton to be writing. 

"Very honestly," said Chatterton proudly. 

Lambert snatched it from his hand, tore it to 
bits and flung it into his face. Subsequently the 
lawyer discovered in a desk both Chatterton's store 
of white paper and many of his completed manu- 
scripts. These he ruthlessly destroyed. Chatterton 
complained to Mrs. Edkins that in this way some of 
his poems had been hopelessly lost. The letters to 
his friends that Lambert had torn up he could easily 
rewrite, he said, but the poems were gone forever. 

Yet the boy was a faithful servant to the tyrant. 
There are still in existence three hundred and seventy- 
four closely written foolscap pages of law precedents 
neatly copied in Chatterton's careful hand to attest 
his industry. He was punctual and obedient, and 
although Lambert feared and disliked him in about 
equal degrees, he could find no other fault with him 
than that "there was no way to keep boys from 



THE RISING FLAME 177 

idling," — idling in the Lambert vocabulary mean- 
ing to write poetry or to study when there was no 
office work to be done. Lambert used to send the 
footman to spy on the apprentice, being under some 
suspicion that Chatterton might leave the office 
when there was nothing to do, but the footman 
always found him at his post. 

Sometimes at home Chatterton told Mrs. Edkins 
that Lambert's tyranny and meanness were unbear- 
able, and he threatened to run away. In 1770 that 
would have meant the bridewell, for so the law dealt 
with fugitive apprentices. Mrs. Edkins remon- 
strated with him, and asked why he should do a thing 
so wrong and so certain to cause trouble for him. To 
go to London, the boy said, to get money to help 
his mother and sister. 

He seemed to Mrs. Edkins, who was his god- 
mother, to be never in spirits but always with a 
grave, serious, studying face, full of thought and con- 
cern. Sometimes at Lambert's he would not say a 
word, unless he were spoken to, for two days together, 
and then with his face cleared up he would take 
aside one of his young friends and read or repeat one 
of the Rowley poems upon which he had been 
engrossed. In other words, when he seemed to be 
morose he was merely intent upon a work in hand. 
As a specimen of the treatment he has had I may 
mention that it is customary to cite the fact of his 



178 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

periodical and pensive silences but never to refer to 
the cause. Apparently, it is thought that while he 
was meditating his artistry he should have been skip- 
ping the rope or making merry with his comrades. 

It was impossible that such a connection as that 
between the small-souled lawyer and the aspiring 
poet should endure, forits path led straight to trouble. 
Moreover, there came now voices that the boy heard, 
and they summoned him to London and another 
career. The editors of the Middlesex Journal 
and of the Town and Country Magazine had praised 
his writings and hinted that if he cared to come to 
London he might do well, and at that dulcet sound 
he strained hard against the chains that bound him 
to Bristol. To be perched upon a stool in a dingy 
office copying dull precedents, practising by stealth 
and at odd moments the art that was the breath of 
his life, was a barren existence to one that was both 
a dreamer of dreams and fired with a mounting 
ambition. But he was bound by his articles, he was 
an apprenticed slave; unless the crusty attorney 
could be induced to cancel his indenture he had no 
hope of freedom. 

In these straits he matured an ingenious but wicked 
device, and yet one quite naturally suggested by his 
musings and his habitual melancholy. No doubt 
Chatterton, like Shelley, to whom he was strangely 
akin, had considered suicide until he reached the 



THE RISING FLAME 179 

conclusion that in certain conditions to end one's 
life is not only innocent but laudable. That scene 
in Trelawney's "Records," where Shelley proposes 
to leap from an open boat and "solve the great 
mystery," had an odd parallel when Chatterton one 
evening after discoursing of suicide to some friends 
drew a pistol from his pocket and pointing it to his 
forehead exclaimed, "Ah, if one had but the courage 
to pull the trigger!" Now a misadventure with a 
letter of his gave a clue to the way from his prison. 
A friend of his in Bristol was one Michael Clayfield, 
a well-to-do distiller and the owner of many books, 
among which Chatterton had browsed delightedly. 
He wrote occasionally to Clayfield and dedicated 
poems to him, and one of the letters, in which he 
advocated suicide and suggested his intention to take 
his own life, he accidentally left upon his desk. Lam- 
bert, who seems to have been, in a characteristic 
way, prying about to see how his apprentice spent 
his time, came upon and read this document. He 
sent it to Barrett, who says he lectured Chatterton 
on the horrid sin of self-destruction until the boy 
wept, a triumph of eloquence of which the sur- 
geon's contemporaries would hardly have believed 
him capable. But at least here was the way open 
and the slave of precedents lost no time in prepar- 
ing another and similar document that should be 
more useful to his purposes. 



180 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

On April 15, 1770, Chatterton being then seventeen 
years and five months old, the spying Lambert 
found on his apprentice's desk a paper bearing the 
startling title, "The Last Will and Testament of 
Thomas Chatterton," and reading on discovered it to 
be an intending suicide's farewell to the world. "All 
this wrote between 1 1 and 2 o'clock Saturday, in the 
utmost distress of mind, April 14, 1770," it began, 
and continued with a metrical address to his friends 
and other matter, running into this explicit statement: 

11 Item. If, after my death, which will happen 
to-morrow night before eight o'clock, being the Feast 
of the Resurrection, the coroner and jury bring it in 
lunacy, I will and direct that Paul Farr, Esq., and 
Mr. John Flower, at their joint expense, cause my 
body to be interred in the tomb of my fathers, and 
raise the monument over my body to the height of 
four feet five inches, placing the present flat stone 
on the top, and adding six tablets." Inscriptions 
for these tablets followed; five were heraldic and 
satirical and only one has any present appeal to the 
minds of men: 

"to the memory of 

THOMAS CHATTERTON 

Reader, judge not. If thou art a Christian, believe 

that he shall be judged by a supreme power: to that 

power alone he is now answerable." 



THE RISING FLAME 181 

The lawyer was, after his nature, properly shocked 
by his discovery, but there was in fact nothing to 
alarm the judicious. A more discerning mind would 
have been on the whole rather moved to interest and 
mild amusement, for many passages showed that 
the apprentice had no possible design upon his life. 

"Item. I give all my vigor and fire of youth to 
Mr. George Catcott, being sensible he is most in 
want of it. 

"Item. From the same charitable motive, I give 
and bequeath unto the Rev. Mr. Camplin, sen., 
all my humility. To Mr. Burgum all my prosody 
and grammar, likewise one moiety of my modesty, 
the other moiety to any young lady who can prove, 
without blushing, that she wants that valuable com- 
modity. ... I leave also my religion to Dr. Cutts 
Barton, Dean of Bristol, hereby empowering the 
sub-sacrist to strike him on the head when he goes 
to sleep in church. . . . 

"Item. I leave all my debts, the whole not five 
pounds, to the payment of the charitable and gen- 
erous Chamber of Bristol, on penalty, if refused, to 
hinder every member from a good dinner by appear- 
ing in the form of a bailiff." 

And so on. Certainly a man does not write like 
this on the eve of destroying himself. But Lambert 
had long been in awe of his strange young appren- 
tice; his mother, who managed his household, was 



1 82 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

thoroughly convinced her lodger was crazy, and a 
kind of panic terror fell upon them lest Chatterton 
should kill himself before he could be gotten off 
the premises. They must have passed a sleepless 
Sunday night, housed with a dangerous lunatic that 
had openly proclaimed his purpose to lay violent 
hands upon himself. On Monday morning, April 16, 
the indentures were hastily canceled and without 
more ado Chatterton found himself released from 
the hateful servitude to precedents and free to tread 
the path where the lights shone and the voices called. 
He set straightway about it, having long turned 
over in his mind all these contingencies and how he 
should act therein. One week he took to prepare for 
his setting forth and to say farewells. His Bristol 
friends made up a little purse for his expenses — a 
few pounds all told. Clayfield contributed gladly, 
no doubt; the Catcotts gave something, Cary added 
a little, and it has even been supposed that on this 
occasion an unwonted fire thawed the chill breast of 
Barrett; a kindly but probably a strained imagin- 
ing. He went about his farewells with the utmost 
cheerfulness. To his mother and sister he was all 
tender consolation. One of his characteristic perform- 
ances was to gather a group of children on the steps 
of St. Mary RedclifFe and bringing up gingerbread 
from a shop across the street and near his mother's 
house, give them a farewell banquet on this national 



THE RISING FLAME 1 83 

dainty. Other youths or even men in like fashion 
approaching from the country that fierce struggle in 
the great city have had sinking of heart and been 
shaken of vague alarms. From the beginning this 
boy had looked with entire self-possession upon the 
seething combat and the part he should play in it. 
Seventeen years old, and equipped with nothing but 
his two hands and what scanty education he had 
picked from the stony field of a commercial school, 
he marched without a tremor. London had no 
terrors for him, of no man alive was he afraid. A 
brave, cool spirit, full of the courage that comes of 
weighing causes and reasoning of foundation matters, 
he looked with unconcern upon the desperate chances 
of that venture. He knew the world, he knew men, 
he knew that his own address never failed to win him 
respect and attention, and he was not deceived about 
the divine fire that he bore. He knew he bore it, he 
knew that of all the men of his generation he had been 
singled out to be the message bringer. 

His farewells were made, his clothing was prepared 
for him by his mother and sister, and a week after 
Lambert had dismissed him, that is to say, on Mon- 
day, April 23, 1770, he sat on the coach bound for 
London and bowling down the curving road to Bath. 
He was not plunging quite unfriended into the great 
city. A relative of his, a kind of cousin, one Mrs. 
Ballance, lodged in the house of a friendly plasterer 



184 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

in Shoreditch and thither he was bound. It rained 
that day and he sat inside most of the way, and that 
night snow fell heavily and on Marlborough Downs 
the snow was near a foot deep. His facility in 
making acquaintances and winning friendships had 
exercise in the coach. His fellow-traveler beside 
him was a Quaker, a journeyman wood-carver, who, 
before Bath was reached, became so much interested 
in the youth that he would fain have gone to London 
to be in his company, only he had not his tools. 
The next day was clear and cold and he sat beside 
the driver, and that seasoned observer of the world 
and mankind was won with the rest, telling the boy 
he sat bolder and tighter than any other person that 
had ridden with him. But so it was always: few 
could look upon that face without being strangely 
moved by it, either to obvious admiration and liking, 
as was the honest "Gee-ho" of the stage-coach, or to 
a vague unrest and concern, as was the curmudgeon 
lawyer. 

He reached London at five o'clock in the after- 
noon of April 25, the journey of one hundred and 
eighteen miles then occupying the better part of two 
days. At Shoreditch he found his cousin and got 
lodgings with the honest plasterer, being in fact, 
bedmate of the plasterer's nephew. His two prime 
traits, tireless energyand his tender home feeling, were 
instantly displayed. Within twenty-four hours of his 



THE RISING FLAME 1 85 

arrival he had seen four of the men from whom he 
expected to win fame and fortune, had settled his 
plans for work, and had written to his mother a letter 
full of cheer. The four men he had seen were 
Edmunds, editor of the Middlesex "Journal, in Shoe 
Lane, Holborn; Hamilton of the Town and Country 
Magazine at St. John's Gate, Clerkenwell; Fell 
of the Freeholders' Magazine, in Paternoster Row; 
and James Dodsley, the book-seller of Pall Mall and 
the recipient of his letters about "Aella." To all 
except Dodsley he was very well known by name. 
Fell was one of the leaders of the Wilkes party; 
Edmunds was of the same faith; to both their peri- 
odicals Chatterton had contributed often. The 
Town and Country Magazine had printed many 
of his miscellanies. The astonishment that fell upon 
these men when they found that the writer of those 
rattling letters on politics, of those vigorous metrical 
satires, was a slip of a boy with a grave calm face and 
preternaturally bright eyes must have exceeded any- 
thing in their experience. The same impression that 
he had made elsewhere attended him here. There 
was that in his dignified bearing, his manifest intel- 
ligence and his manner, at once frank and engag- 
ing, that instantly forestalled any thought of treating 
him as a boy. The graybeards made way for him; 
boy and all he had his place at the front of the 
fight. 



1 86 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

"Great encouragement from them; all approved 
of my design," he wrote his mother when he returned 
to Shoreditch that day. His design was to establish 
himself as a writer, and indeed it looked probable 
enough. No other mind in England, save only the 
mysterious Junius, possessed such a compelling 
power upon words. The time, too, was urgent, 
being electric with the premonitions of the vivifying 
storms of the French revolution. Periodical litera- 
ture was in its beginning, active inquiry was on foot 
about divine right and government, and above all the 
forces were arrayed in London for the great struggle 
between people and throne over Wilkes and Beckford. 

Beckford was lord mayor. He was of acute mind 
and a ready courage, many sterling qualities of 
leadership, a sincere love of democracy, and he was 
re-inforced by the knowledge of a great popular 
majority behind him. Six days before Chatterton 
reached London Wilkes had ended his twenty-two 
months' imprisonment for speaking disrespectfully of 
the king, and London was still ringing with the en- 
thusiastic celebration of his release. Beckford was 
of Wilkes's turn of mind. The right of electors to 
choose whom they would without interference from 
the crown was the vital issue in the case of Wilkes, 
and under the leadership of Beckford the corpora- 
tion of London presented to the king a petition that 
the sanctity of elections be maintained. It was a 



THE RISING FLAME 187 

movement purely on Wilkes's behalf and therefore 
ruffled the king's temper. He did not like it because 
he detested Wilkes and all that Wilkes stood for, 
and he had no more wit than to reply to it in a spirit 
of quarrel. It gave him great concern, said this dull 
monarch, to find that any of his subjects "should 
have been so far misled as to offer me an address 
and remonstrance, the contents of which I cannot 
but consider as disrespectful to me, injurious to my 
parliament, and irreconcilable to the principles of 
the constitution." This was bad enough, but what 
inflamed the populace to a perilous wrath was that 
when the king had read to Beckford's deputation this 
unmannerly speech he made an open jest of the affair 
to the leaders of the court party that were with him. 
To be jested about is usually the intolerable burden 
to men that have a serious cause, and for the cause 
that Beckford represented thrones have been shaken 
down and kings' heads have rolled in the sawdust. 
London was in no mood for laughter; it immediately 
made Wilkes an alderman to spite the court party 
and settled into a dogged contest to secure the debated 
seat in Parliament. 

Wilkes and Beckford meantime planned another 
deputation to the king, and on May 23 an audience 
was granted. Beckford, of course, headed the party 
and read the petition, which was a spirited remon- 
strance against the king's churlish response to the 



1 88 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

former address. That is, it was held in that day 
to be extremely spirited and dangerously bold. A 
later generation would have choked at the expressions 
of humility wherewith it was plentifully larded. But 
it remonstrated, that was the main thing, and it hit 
hard the foolish king, for as soon as it concluded 
George III pulled out his reply, which was even 
more exasperating and ill-conceived than his previous 
effort had been. But Beckford was ready, having 
probably understood clearly from the beginning 
what would be the outcome of the visit. Before 
the monarch could move away the mayor had burst 
into a brief but pointed extemporaneous harangue in 
which, with every expression of loyal devotion to the 
king and the government, he contrived to rap George 
over the knuckles for his attitude towards the people. 
Whoever had dared, said Beckford, to alienate the 
king's affections from his loyal subjects in general and 
from the city of London in particular was "an enemy 
to your majesty's person and family, a violator of the 
public peace, and a betrayer of our happy constitu- 
tion as it was established at the glorious Revolution." 
Tremendous excitement followed this daring 
outburst, and Beckford was hailed everywhere with 
wondering applause as one that had ventured single- 
handed into a lion's den and come out unbitten. To 
speak thus to a king and escape the vengeful bolts 
of heaven was as if the days of miracles had returned. 



THE RISING FLAME 189 

Beckford became a popular idol and a fixed star 
among the nation's heroes, his bold deed being to this 
day emblazoned on his statue in the Guildhall. 

This was the storm center into which Chatterton 
projected himself and where he was become in four 
weeks a figure of consequence. Beckford knew him 
personally and liked him; Wilkes knew his work very 
well, and told Fell it was simply impossible that such 
writings should come from a boy of eighteen years 
and he was eager to meet such a marvel. There was 
some understanding of active cooperation between 
Beckford and Chatterton that has never been cleared 
up. In one of the letters, filled with cheering and 
loving messages, that the boy wrote home, he in- 
timated something of the kind but not the extent to 
which he took part in the popular party's affairs. 
"You have doubtless heard of the Lord Mayor's 
remonstrating and addressing the king," he says, 
" but it will be a piece of news to inform you that I 
have been with the Lord Mayor on the occasion." 
He describes briefly his first meeting with Beckford 
and adds, "The rest is a secret." It has remained 
a secret, but the popular leaders were only too glad 
to have the assistance of the terrible flail of that pen. 



VI 

Now Cracks a Noble Heart 

So far as that he had won his upward path. It 
was an age not partial to boys. Then and for gen- 
erations afterward, the lot of children in the world 
was hard enough. The dullard time seemed to 
revenge itself for its own shortcomings by making the 
utmost of the scant superiority of years. To be 
seen seldom and to be heard not at all, to be regarded 
as enemies of adult peace and complacency, was only 
part of the iron rule for childhood. Dotheboys Hall 
was a sadly true picture and it came in a later and 
gentler time. To know the horrid and tolerated 
cruelty meted out in the eighteenth century to boys, 
as to those in the navy, for instance, is to have your 
blood boil at the senseless tyranny. Boys seemed 
to be made to be beaten, to be frowned upon, sup- 
pressed and disliked. Yet in four weeks this boy 
had won a man's place among the leaders of his 
party. Almost his first step on reaching London 
had been made in characteristic fashion toward that 
acquaintance with Beckford of which I have spoken. 
He wrote to the lord mayor a letter of warm congratu- 



NOW CRACKS A NOBLE HEART 191 

lation upon the first remonstrance and followed 
the letter in person. Beckford received him with 
wonder, no doubt, but quickly perceived that he was 
dealing with no ordinary mind. Indeed, the pol- 
ished address, the gravity and self-possession, the 
extraordinary command of language, the evidences of 
thought and wide acquaintance with affairs, were 
irresistible. The mayor was exceedingly affable, and 
when the boy offered to write another letter further 
endorsing the policy of the remonstrance Beckford 
readily enough approved and was evidently sensible 
that the gods had raised for him a champion of un- 
usual gifts. The letter was written and the leaders 
arranged to have it published as a broadside in the 
revived North Briton. 

But all this, of course, had little or nothing 
to do with the boy's inner life. In Shoreditch 
was his cousin, Mrs. Ballance, but neither there 
nor elsewhere was the kind of companionship 
that would have been most serviceable to him, 
the sympathetic understanding of his nature and 
aims, the interest that perceives and would fain 
help. In the midst of the throngs of London he 
was more truly alone than he had been in Bristol. 
Mrs. Ballance had expected, doubtless, to find a boy 
like the rest of the Chattertons she had known. 
She was startled and nonplussed, poor woman, to 
come upon a genius in her own family. One scrap 



I92 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

of their conversation is preserved. When he came 
in she called him "Cousin Tommy," for he seemed 
to her but a little boy. 

He drew himself up with indignant pride. 

" Don't call me Tommy," he said sharply. 

"Why not?" said the good woman, perplexed. 
"That is your name, isn't it ?" 

"Did you ever know a poet named Tommy ?" said 
the boy in great scorn. 

Mrs. Ballance could make nothing of him. All he 
seemed to care to talk about was Wilkes, the popular 
revolt, and political matters that were truly Greek to 
her. Once he frightened her into the border land 
of hysteria by announcing that he hoped presently 
to be sent to the Tower. In all her recollections no 
Chatterton had ever been sent to the Tower. He 
told her that he expected to settle the state of the 
nation, and probably enjoyed the wide-mouthed 
wonder which with she received the information. 
He seemed to her hardly human in his way of life. 
He cared nothing about food, which argued an 
abnormal constitution and one that filled his cousin 
with dismay. He was supposed to board with her, 
but his boarding was something like the feeding of 
a bird. He had always been (like Shelley again) 
exceedingly abstemious in this regard. Animal food 
he usually rejected on his old theory that it impaired 
the clear working of his intellect. A tart and a glass 



NOW CRACKS A NOBLE HEART 193 

of water were a dinner for him. He never drank 
wine nor liquor, and his capacity for unremitting 
toil amazed the simple folk around him. The 
plasterer's nephew thought his roommate a kind of 
demon, agreeable enough, but still a demon, for he 
sat writing and studying far into the night, and early 
in the morning he was again at toil. He seemed never 
to sleep and seldom to eat. The nephew saw him 
once or twice take a sheep's tongue from his pocket 
and make a luncheon upon it, barely intermitting his 
labor even for the slight repast. The record of 
his ceaseless activities seems incredible. The writ- 
ing he produced in those days for only its extent and 
its variety of subject would be among the mysteries 
of literature. Few authors in any age and in any 
length of time have covered a greater range. Pleas- 
ure he hardly knew the name of. If he went to the 
theater or the fashionable gardens, or to the Chapter 
Coffee House, it was to gather material for his inter- 
minable work. Bright-eyed he walked the crowded 
streets looking incessantly for the things he was to 
write about. A tremendous ambition consumed him; 
he saw the fame and success he had dreamed about 
almost within his reach, and between the little room 
in Shoreditch and the publishing offices he toiled 
back and forth like a driven slave. 

He was, indeed, a slave to the publishers of the 
day. For almost every known periodical in London 



I94 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

he was a contributor. Everything that went to press 
was (to reverse the ancient phrase) a mill for his 
grist. To the Middlesex Journal and the Free- 
holders' Magazine he contributed political essays; in 
Hamilton's Town and Country Magazine, in the 
London, the Court and City, and Gospel Magazines, 
the London Museum and the Political Register he had 
many miscellanies in prose and verse. I put the 
Town and Country first because with that, and with 
Hamilton the editor thereof, he had most to do. 
In this periodical appeared a series of eleven clever 
sketches of contemporaneous life, mostly written in the 
character of an observer about town. Some of these, 
the letters of "Tony Selwood" for instance, are 
touched with a keen observation and clear under- 
standing of human nature and some show evidences 
of a strong narrative power. Many of his writings 
were pot-boilers, and one paper, the story of " Maria 
Friendless," was a paraphrase of a tale of Johnson's 
in the Rambler. Yet it is impossible to deny that 
pot-boilers or otherwise, they were well done. The 
tone of literature in that day was licentious. Things 
were printed in the most respectable magazines that 
to-day could not be printed anywhere. Writing for 
daily bread and naturally not much concerned about 
permanent value in productions so ephemeral and 
commercial, Chatterton often followed in his themes 
the prevailing fashions. The periodicals he wrote for 



NOW CRACKS A NOBLE HEART 195 

were the best of his day, and these things were 
then taken as a matter of course, but some of his 
papers reprinted in a later age have served to further 
in an undeserved way the reputation that has been 
manufactured for him of libertinism. "The Me- 
moirs of a Sad Dog" are not edifying reading; yet 
they are no worse than many other sketches that were 
appearing in the magazines. The productive tide 
was swollen, too, from the work of past days. From 
his trunk came forth many things that had budded 
in Lambert's dingy office and had escaped, for the 
use now found, the destroying fingers of the lawyer; 
such things as so-called translations of Saxon poems, 
tales and articles, and he even sent to his sister for 
the glossary he had invented for Rowley, heralding 
renewed activities by that excellent poet. 

His trade as a satirist in prose and verse gave him 
an opportunity to express his opinion of Horace 
Walpole, and the way he availed himself of it made 
history. Again and again he slashed the noble lord 
with the keenest blade that shone in those times. 
In the satirical poem "Kew Gardens," in the prose 
"Memoirs of a Sad Dog" and elsewhere, Walpole 
repeatedly figures in the most ridiculous light as the 
"Baron Otranto." In one of the "Sad Dog" papers 
the attack is particularly ingenious, since it takes 
the earl on his most vulnerable side, his posing as 
a dilettante scientist and antiquarian. Chatterton 



196 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

represents him as visiting at a country house, where 
in the dog kennel he discovers a stone with letters 
engraved upon it. It is in fact a piece of an old tomb- 
stone that has fallen to such base uses that it now 
keeps the dogs from crawling through a hole in the 
wall; but the Baron Otranto is certain that he has 
found an ancient relic of great value, and after days 
of solitary study announces that he has deciphered 
the inscription. It means, he says, that the 
place where he found it was the tomb of an old 
British saint of renown; whereas it is really 
the gravestone of honest Bill Hicks. Walpole could 
never have seen the savage reference in " Kew Gar- 
dens" to his foolish performance with Kitty Clive, 
the actress, for whom he built a house at Twicken- 
ham, but what he did see was enough. The sar- 
casms were done in that bitter, lancet-edged style of 
which Chatterton was the master, and might have 
cut to the quick the toughest hide. Walpole's was 
not of that kind; like all men that are unsure of them- 
selves and cover their deficiencies by posing, he was 
particularly sensitive to ridicule. Years afterward, 
when the author of "Kew Gardens" was dead, 
the attention drawn to his works completed his re- 
venge for the insult Walpole had put upon him, 
and under the torture Walpole writhed as much as 
might be desired. But it was a costly revenge, for 
the boy being dead and that powerful pen of his at 



NOW CRACKS A NOBLE HEART 197 

rest, the man was at perfect liberty to assail him in 
any way he pleased, and the way he chose stained 
Chatterton's reputation for more than a century. 

Five of his political essays were printed in the 
Middlesex Journal in the month of May. One of 
them was addressed to the Earl of Hillsborough, 
the Minister of Colonies, who was held largely 
responsible for the troubles in America; one to the 
king's mother, the Princess Dowager of Wales, 
whose shadow continued to fall more or less on her 
son's unhappy reign; one to North, then Prime Minis- 
ter, and one to the Electors of Bristol. The Hills- 
borough letter is to us the most interesting; I take 
an extract from it to show what were his sympathies 
for America and at the same time the strength of the 
weapon he wielded: 

"My Lord, — If a constant exercise of tyranny 
and cruelty has not steeled your heart against all 
sensations of compunction and remorse, permit me 
to remind you of the recent massacre in Boston. It 
is an infamous attribute of the ministry of the Thane l 
that what his tools begin in secret fraud and oppres- 
sion ends in murder and avowed assassination. Not 
contented to deprive us of our liberty, they rob us of 
our lives, knowing from a sad experience that the 
one without the other is an insupportable burden. 
Your lordship has bravely distinguished yourself 

1 He means Bute. 



198 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

among the ministers of the present reign. Whilst 
North and the instruments of his royal mistress 
settled the plan of operation, it was your part to 
execute; you were the assassin whose knife was ever 
ready to finish the crime. If every feeling of hu- 
manity is not extinct in you, reflect, for a moment 
reflect, on the horrid task you undertook and per- 
petrated," etc. 

In the Political Register were printed his first letter 
to Beckford and "The Prophecy," a vigorous 
political appeal; in the Freeholders' Magazine for 
May appeared the first part of the satirical poem 
"Resignation" of which I have before spoken; in 
the London Museum for May "Narva and Mored," 
one of his African eclogues, and in the June number 
"The Death of Nicou," another of the same series; 
in the Town and Country Magazine appeared an 
elegy of his, "Maria Friendless," "The False Step" 
(a prose story), an "Anecdote of Judge Jeffries," 
"To Miss Burt of Bristol" (a sentimental poem), 
and his "Hunter of Oddities" papers; in the Gospel y 
the Court and City> the London and other magazines 
were many short contributions from his pen that have 
never been recovered, so that we have here but an 
imperfect list of his labors. 

He was also busy in other directions to further his 
interests and to extend his acquaintance. The Mer- 
maid Tavern of his day was the Chapter Coffee House 



NOW CRACKS A NOBLE HEART 199 

in Paternoster Row, and he went there frequently 
until he was a figure somewhat familiar to its 
literary circle. He was at pains to dress well, to 
frequent places of fashionable resort, the theater 
and the gardens. He made acquaintances on all 
sides, some that helped his harvesting, and what 
was remarkable in a young fellow first from home, 
none, so far as we know, that was injurious to 
him. 

The publishers were eager to have his contribu- 
tions; they were not eager to pay for them. It was 
the dawn of periodical literature, the magazines had 
small circulation and small profits; most of them, 
accordingly, depended for their matter upon the 
gratuitous offerings of ambitious writers. Few maga- 
zines had any commercial basis or were conducted 
as business enterprises; the whole vast field of adver- 
tising was yet to be discovered and developed, the 
magazines were the growth of vanity, whim, or politi- 
cal fervor. When contributions were paid for it 
was at a rate that seems to us mere match money. 
Yet this boy was making headway and his hope 
was high. The appreciation that he had received 
did not turn his head nor unduly exalt his spirits, 
and he labored steadily and intelligently toward his 
goal. 

He wrote home regularly and always in a cheerful 
Vein. As he made money he laid aside something of 



200 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

the little income for presents for the family on Red- 
clifFe Hill, remembering the grandmother with some 
of her favorite tobacco and buying gifts of china- 
ware and apparel for his mother and sister. He 
assured them constantly that they should share his 
success and he would provide for them every com- 
fort. The whole wealth of an affectionate nature 
was often poured out in these letters; no trace of irri- 
tation or concern appeared in them; they had only 
good news and terms of affection. Usually they are 
in a style of sprightly good humor. He wrote to 
his mother this: 

Shoreditch, London: May 6, 1770. 
Dear Mother, — I am surprised that no letter has been 
sent in answer to my last. I am settled, and in such a settlement 
as I would desire. I get four guineas a week by one magazine; 
shall engage to write a history of England and other pieces, which 
will more than double that sum. Occasional essays for the daily 
papers would more than support me. What a glorious prospect! 
Mr. Wilkes knew me by my writings since I first corresponded 
with the book-sellers here. I shall visit him next week, and by 
his interest will ensure Mrs. Ballance the Trinity house. He 
affirmed that what Mr. Fell had of mine could not be the writings 
of a youth, and expressed a desire to know the author. By the 
means of another book-seller, I shall be introduced to Townshend 
and Sawbridge. I am quite familiar at the Chapter Coffee 
House, and know all the geniuses there. A character is now 
unnecessary; an author carries his character in his pen. My 
sister will improve herself in drawing. My grandmother is, I 
hope, well. Bristol's mercenary walls were never destined to 



NOW CRACKS A NOBLE HEART 201 

hold me; there I was out of my element; now I am in it. London! 
— Good God! How superior is London to that despicable place, 
Bristol! Here is none of your little meannesses, none of your 
mercenary securities, which disgrace that miserable hamlet. 
Dress, which is in Bristol an eternal fund of scandal, is here only 
introduced as a subject of praise: if a man dresses well, he has 
taste; if careless, he has his own reasons for so doing, and is pru- 
dent. Need I remind you of the contrast ? The poverty of 
authors is a common observation, but not always a true one. No 
author can be poor who understands the arts of book-sellers: with- 
out this necessary knowledge the greatest genius may starve, and 
with it the greatest dunce live in splendour. This knowledge I 
have pretty well dipped into. — The Levant, man-of-war, in which 
T. Wensley 1 went out, is at Portsmouth; but no news of him yet. 
I lodge in one of Mr. Walmsley's best rooms. Let Mr. Cary copy 
the letters on the other side, and give them to the persons for 
whom they are designed, if not too much labour for him. — 
I remain yours and so forth, 

T. Chatterton. 
P. S. — I have some trifling presents for my mother, sister, 
Thorne, et cetera. 

The character of the boy shone out in his refer- 
ence to his intentions about Mrs. Ballance as well 
as in the "trifling presents." His first natural im- 
pulse if he gained anything was to use it for some one 
else. His influence with his great friends he pur- 
posed to bend for Mrs. Ballance's benefit to secure 
for her the Trinity House pension for the widows of 
seamen in the navy. 

1 This was an acquaintance of the Chattertons. 



202 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

By early June he was well established, his path 
seemed clear to him, his earnings though small were 
sufficient for his slender needs, and there seemed 
every promise that his dream would be realized. He 
saw himself on the verge of all that he had desired, 
fame and independence within his grasp, Rowley to 
be given to the world, the work that was his life 
recognized and praised. And then, of a sudden, a 
series of disasters arose to crush one by one the 
fabric of his hopes. Reaction and absolutism, with- 
out warning, thrust out their power and the boy was 
caught in the falling walls of their overturning. 
Parliament, after weeks of fierce discussion of the 
Wilkes case, adjourned for the summer holidays 
without deciding it. Many of the leaders on both 
sides left town, Wilkes himself went to the seashore, 
the long hard battle came to a temporary pause, and 
the government seized the opportunity to move in 
relentless fashion upon its enemies. The blows fell 
in rapid succession. Edmunds, of the Middlesex 
'Journal, was arrested and sentenced to Newgate 
Prison. Fell, of the Freeholders' Magazine, was si- 
lenced and ruined by being thrust into King's Bench 
jail on a trumped-up affair of debt. Woodfall, of 
the Public Advertiser, the publisher of Junius, was 
haled before the King's Bench; Almon, of the London 
Museum, before Lord Mansfield in Westminster Hall. 
Miller, of the London Evening Post, was arrested 



NOW CRACKS A NOBLE HEART 203 

for the mere reprinting of a letter of Junius. Un- 
controllable terror fell upon the opposition press; 
in a moment the voice of revolt was stifled; the 
democratic campaign came to an abrupt end, the 
editors and publishers still out of jail took warning 
and scrupulously purified their columns of the slight- 
est word of dissent, and for the time being progress 
turned backward. 

At one stroke, therefore, the greater part of 
Chatterton's market disappeared. All his friends 
and associates were in jail, or in flight, or silenced. 
It may be believed that there never was a braver heart. 
The blow he took full in the face and instantly he 
prepared to retrieve it. Writing to his sister of these 
events he declared that they would in the end be 
to his benefit, for the magazines would still be pub- 
lished, though their editors were in jail, and the 
demand for his work would be the greater. But 
he must have known better; he must have known, 
in fact, how the structure of his fortunes tottered, 
for he now set about enlarging the field of his em- 
ployments. 

The triumph of reaction and the overwhelming of 
the opposition were not all; it was Fell that was to 
bring Chatterton and Wilkes together, and Fell was 
now in prison. Chatterton had counted much on the 
introduction and doubtless saw how he could utilize it 
to his advantage, and now it was suddenly taken from 



204 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

him. Yet worse remained behind. In the midst 
of his misfortunes and the defeats of his party, Beck- 
ford still stood, the invincible, that looked upon the 
king and unterrified spoke his mind, Beckford from 
whom he confidently expected to have advance- 
ment. And suddenly, Beckford died. For a mo- 
ment at this culminating misfortune the boy's steady 
self-command gave way. He stormed up and down 
Mrs. Ballance's room at Shoreditch, declaring that 
he was ruined, and all was over with him. The good 
Ballance was astonished at his agitation, which, 
knowing nothing of the understanding between the 
boy and the mayor, seemed unaccountable to her. 
The storm passed and once more he sat down sternly 
to outface disaster. He turned the death of his 
friend to immediate account by writing elegies and 
essays upon him, and these he managed to sell. The 
second letter to Beckford, which had been accepted 
by Bingley's North Briton, and was all but to fill 
the next issue of that revived periodical, was now of 
necessity returned to him, an additional blow to his 
prospects and a loss of almost two pounds in money. 
Outside he showed an unshaken front. To his 
friend Cary, in Bristol, he made light of the mis- 
fortune of Beckford's death by writing for him the 
following memorandum: 

"Accepted by Bingley, set for, and thrown out of, the 
North Briton, 2ist June, on account of Lord Mayor's death: 



NOW CRACKS A NOBLE HEART 205 

£ ' * 
Lost by his death on this Essay I II 6 

Gained in Elegies 2 2 o 

Gained in Essays 3 3 o 

5 5° 
Am glad he is dead by. . . 

£3 *3 6" 
But he was under no deception as to the situation 
he fronted and with desperation he fought for every 
chance. Among the acquaintances he had made 
(this time in the pit of Drury Lane Theater) was a 
young man connected with a music publisher's house 
in Cheapside. When he learned that Chatterton 
could write, this young man put him in the way of 
writing songs to be set to music and introduced 
him to a composer. Soon he had the satisfaction of 
hearing some of his songs sung in public at the gar- 
dens, and while the income from this source was very 
small it was a guide-post to a more promising field. 
One of the three popular summer gardens then in 
operation in London was the Marylebone. It was 
here that Chatterton heard his songs in the part of 
the entertainment (a kind of primitive vaudeville) 
that was given from the stage, promenading to the 
music of the band being the other attraction. While 
at Bristol he had begun and thrown aside a burlesque 
operetta that he now conceived would be available 
for use at this resort. He had called it "Amphitryon" 



206 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

and made it somewhat heavier than London taste 
called for. This now came out of his trunk and 
underwent a speedy recasting. "The Revenge" he 
rechristened it. The story turns on the wrath of 
Juno at the discovery that Jupiter has gone love- 
making after Maia. It is exceedingly funny, the 
quarreling of Jupiter and Juno being managed with 
great spirit and cleverness; very easily one may see 
how with equally effective music the thing would go 
with immense effect. A swift succession of songs in 
different quick-footed meters gives the whole a sur- 
passingly lively air. The songs are interspersed with 
short recitatives; the whole thing is in verse. I will 
give a taste of its quality by quoting the beginning 
of the first act: 

Jupiter (recitative) 
I swear by Styx, the usage is past bearing; 
My lady Juno ranting, tearing, swearing! 
Why, what the devil will my godship do, 
If blows and thunder cannot tame a shrew ? 

Air 
Tho' the loud thunder rumbles, 
Tho' storms rend the sky; 
Yet louder she grumbles, 
And swells the sharp cry. 

Her jealousy teasing, 
Disgusting her form; 
Her music as pleasing 
As pigs in a storm. 



NOW CRACKS A NOBLE HEART 207 

I fly her embraces, 
To wenches more fair; 
And leave her wry faces, 
Cold sighs and despair. 

Cupid comes to tell Juno that her lord has gone 
to meet Maia. 

Juno 
How! What! When! Where! — nay, pri' thee now unfold it. 

Cupid 
'Gad — so I will; for faith I cannot hold it. 
His mighty godship in a fiery flurry 
Met me just now — confusion to his hurry! 
I stopt his way, forsooth, and with a thwack, 
He laid a thunderbolt across my back: 
Bless me! I feel it now — my short ribs ache yet — 
I vow'd revenge, and now by Styx I'll take it. 
Miss Maia, in her chamber, after nine 
Receives the thund'rer, in his robes divine. 
I undermined it all; see, here's the letter — 
Could dukes spell worse, whose tutors spell no better ? 
You know false spelling now is much the fashion — 

Juno 
Lend me your drops — Oh! I shall swoon with passion! 

There is much broad comedy when Bacchus is 
brought roistering in, and local and topical refer- 
ences that must have been salad to a smart London 
audience. In fact the whole thing is infinitely divert- 
ing, witty, and bright and must have shown Chatter- 



208 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

ton that he had a facility in light catchy verse as 
well as in the somber strains of a more enduring art. 

"The Revenge" was submitted to Atterbury, pro- 
prietor of Marylebone Gardens. He accepted it and 
paid Chatterton five guineas for it, 1 the largest sum 
the boy ever received for any work and the only 
instance when his wage approximated his labor. 
The piece was acted at the gardens, but not until 
some months after its acceptance, other matters 
probably intervening. 

Encouraged by the success of "The Revenge," 
he now undertook another comedy, this time in prose, 
"The Woman of Spirit," but did not complete it. 
He had, meantime, changed his lodging from the 
plasterer's at Shoreditch to Brooke Street, Holborn, 
No. 39, where he rented a front room in the attic of 
Mrs. Frederick Angell, a dressmaker. He had 
various reasons for making the change, but the 
strongest was that he saw the rapid decline of his 
prospects in the ruin of his friends, and his pride 
would not let him reveal to his relatives how straight- 
ened were his circumstances and how closely he 
must economize to avoid imminent disaster. They 
might write of it to his mother. The five guineas he 
had of Atterbury merely sufficed to tide him over for 
two or three weeks and meantime next to nothing was 
coming in. From the first his pay had been wretched. 

According to a note by one of Chatterton ""s editors the manuscript of 
this work was subsequently sold for 150 pounds. 



NOW CRACKS A NOBLE HEART 209 

For sixteen songs that Hamilton bought of him for 
the Town and Country Magazine he had received 
but 10 shillings 6 pence; for the long satirical poem 
of the " Consuliad " Fell paid him 10 shillings 6 pence; 
paragraphs in the Town and Country brought 2 shil- 
lings; a variety of work in the Middlesex Journal, for 
May, including the political essays I have described 
and quoted from, earned only 1 pound, 11 shillings, 
6 pence. His entire earnings for the month of May 
(on the whole his most prosperous month) were only 
4 pounds, 15 shillings, 9 pence. In June he earned 
3 pounds, 13 shillings, 6 pence in essays and elegies 
on Beckford's death, but he published at his own 
expense a more elaborate elegy on his friend and 
this ate into his little capital. 

And yet enough money was owing him at this 
time to support him in comfort, despite the diffi- 
culties created by the resurgence of feudalism; 
Hamilton of the Town and Country, for instance, had 
accepted of him manuscripts that he continued to 
publish for more than a year. But the boy's pride 
would not let him complain of these conditions. It 
was his old story, the old familiar tryanny of the 
strong upon the weak. They were men, he was a 
boy, and they took full advantage of the superior 
position. 

Hence for the majority of the writings that with 
such infinite toil he produced in those lonely months 
in London he received nothing; for the rest he had 



210 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

pittances, the price of a slender meal, may be a few 
shillings at the most. 

Among the works that Hamilton shortly had of 
him was another flight of song from Rowley. The 
glossary from Bristol had arrived and in the quiet 
attic in Brooke Street Rowley lifted up his voice 
again and sang at his sweetest and to this effect: 

An Excelente Balade of Charitie: 

as wroten bie the gode prieste 

Thomas Rowleie, 1464 

1 In Virgo now the sultry sun did sheene, 
And hot upon the meads did cast his ray; 
The apple reddened from its paly green, 
And the soft pear did bend the leafy spray; 
The pied chelandry 2 sang the live long day; 
'Twas now the pride, the manhood of the year, 
And eke the ground was decked in its most deft aumere. 3 

The sun was gleaming in the midst of day, 
Dead-still the air, and eke the welkin blue, 
When from the sea arose in drear array 
A heap of clouds of sable sullen hue, 
The which full fast unto the woodland drew, 
Hiding at once the red sun's festive face, 
And the black tempest swelled, and gathered up apace. 

Beneath a holm, 4 fast by a pathway side, 
Which did unto Saint Godwin's convent lead, 

1 The text as here given is modernized, but I fear indifferently. As 
so often before noted in these pages only the original can show Chatterton's 
real art. 2 goldfinch. 3 mantle. 4 holly tree. 



NOW CRACKS A NOBLE HEART 21 1 

A hapless pilgrim moaning did abide. 
Poor in his view, ungentle in his weed, 
Long brimful of the miseries of need, 
Where from the hailstorm could the beggar fly ? 
He had no houses there, nor any convent nigh. 

Look in his gloomy face, his sprite there scan; 
How woe-begone, how withered, dwindled, dead! 
Haste to thy church-glebe-house, thou wretched man! 
Haste to thy shroud, thine only sleeping bed. 
Cold as the clay that will rest on thy head 
Are Charity and Love among high elves; 
For knights and barons live for pleasure and themselves. 

The gathered storm is ripe; the big drops fall, 
The sun-burnt meadows smoke, and drink the rain; 
The coming ghastness doth the kine appal, 
And the full flocks are driving o'er the plain; 
Dashed from the clouds, the waters rise again; 
The welkin opes, the yellow lightning flies, 
And the hot fiery steam in the wide flashings dies. 

List! now the thunder's startling noisy sound 
Moves slowly on, and then full-swollen clangs, 
Shakes the high spire, and lost, expended, drowned, 
Still on the affrighted ear of terror hangs. 
The winds are up; the lofty elmtree swangs: 
Again the lightning, and the thunder pours, 
And the full clouds are burst at once in torrent showers. 

Spurring his palfrey o'er the watery plain, 
The Abbot of Saint Godwin's convent came; 
His chapournette 1 was all a-drench with rain, 
His pointed girdle met with mickle stain; 
1 A small round hat. 



212 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

He backwards told his beadroll at the same; 1 
The storm increasing then he drew aside 
With the poor alms-craver near to the holm to bide. 

His cope was all of Lincoln cloth so fine, 
With a gold button fastened near his chin, 
His autremete 2 was edged with golden twine, 
And his shoe's peak a noble's might have been; 
Full well it showed he thought great cost no sin. 
The trammels of his palfrey pleased his sight, 
For the horse-milliner his head with roses dight. 

"An alms, sir priest!" the drooping pilgrim said, 
"Oh! let me wait within your convent-door 
Till the sun shineth high above our head, 
And the loud tempest of the air is o'er. 
Helpless and old am I, alas! and poor. 
No house, no friend, no money in my pouch, 
All that I call my own is this my silver crouche." 3 

"Varlet!" replied the abbot, "cease your din; 
This is no season alms and prayers to give; 
My porter never lets a faitour 4 in; 
None touch my ring who not in honor live." 
And now the sun with the black clouds did strive, 
And shot upon the ground his glaring ray; 
The abbot spurred his steed, and eftsoon rode away. 

Once more the sky was black, the thunder rolled. 
Fast running o'er the plain a priest was seen. 
Not dight full proud, nor buttoned up in gold, 
His cope and jape were grey, and eke were clean; 

1 Chatterton explained this in his own notes as a form of cursing. 

2 A loose white robe. 3 cross. 4 beggar. 



NOW CRACKS A NOBLE HEART 213 

A limitor 1 he was of order seen; 
And from the pathway then aside turned he, 
Where the poor beggar lay beneath the holmen tree. 

"An alms, sir priest!" the drooping pilgrim said, 
"For sweet Saint Mary and your order's sake." 
The limitor then loosened his pouch-thread, 
And did thereout a groat of silver take: 
The needy pilgrim did for gladness shake. 
"Here, take this silver, it may ease thy care, 
We are God's stewards all, naught of our own we bear. 

"But ah! unhappy pilgrim, learn of me: 
Scarce any give a rentroll to their lord; 
Here, take my semicope, thou'rt bare, I see, 
'Tis thine; the saints will give me my reward." 
He left the pilgrim and his way aborde. 
Virgin and holy saints, who sit in gloure, 
Or give the mighty will, or give the good man power! 

This eloquent cry of a soul that had felt the pinch 
of the world's inhumanity and learned the rarity of 
human charity, Hamilton, for some reason, rejected; 
the Town and Country Magazine had published 
scores of less effective works from the same pen. 

He continued to write home the bravest letters, 
full of courage and cheering news and to lay out a 
part of his small earnings in presents for the three 
persons to whom his affections clung so steadfastly 
that now no one can unmoved read of their expres- 
sion. He received his five guineas from Atterbury 

1 A licensed begging friar. 



214 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

on July 6 and went at once to buy presents for Bristol. 
He knew quite well that he was facing sore trouble 
and very likely want. With a great-hearted gener- 
osity for which he has never had credit, he utterly dis- 
regarded his own possible needs to give pleasure to 
others. On July 8 he wrote to his mother as follows : 

"Dear Mother, — I send you in the box, six cups and 
saucers with two basins for my sister. If a china teapot and 
creampot is in your opinion, necessary, I will send them; but I 
am informed they are unfashionable, and that the red china, 
which you are provided with, is more in use. A cargo of patterns 
for yourself, with a snuffbox, right French, and very curious in 
my opinion. 

Two fans — the silver one is more grave than the other, which 
would suit my sister best. But that I leave to you both. Some 
British herb snuff, in the box; be careful how you open it. (This 
I omit lest it injure the other matters.) Some British herb tobacco 
for my grandmother; some trifles for Thome. Be assured when- 
ever I have the power, my will won't be wanting to testify that 
I remember you. 

Yours, 
T. Chatterton. 

N. B. — I shall forestall your intended journey, and pop down 
upon you at Christmas. 

I could have wished you had sent my red pocket-book, as 'tis 
very material. 

I bought two very curious twisted pipes for my grandmother; 
but both breaking, I was afraid to buy others lest they should 
break in the box; and being loose, injure the china. . . . 

Direct for me at Mrs. Angell's, Sackmaker, Brook-street, 
Holborn. 



NOW CRACKS A NOBLE HEART 215 

To Mary he wrote: 

Dear Sister, — I have sent you some china and a fan. You 
have your choice of two. I am surprised that you chose purple 
and gold. I went into the shop to buy it; but it is the most dis- 
agreeable colour I ever saw — dead, lifeless, and inelegant. 
Purple and pink, or lemon and pink, are more genteel and lively. 
Your answer in this affair will oblige me. Be assured, that I 
shall ever make your wants my wants; and stretch to the utmost 
to serve you. Remember me to Miss Sandford, Miss Rumsey, 
Miss Singer, &c. 

As to the songs, I have waited this week for them, and have 
not had time to copy one perfectly; when the season's over, you 
will have 'em all in print. I had pieces last month in the follow- 
ing magazines: 

Gospel Magazine. 
Town and Country, viz: 

"Maria Friendless" 
"False Step" 
"Hunter of Oddities" 
"To Miss Bush," &c. 
Court and City, London, Political Register, &c. 
The Christian Magazine, as they are not to be had perfect, 
are not worth buying. 

I remain, yours, 

T. Chatterton. 
July 11, 1770. 

I am now about an Oratorio, which, when finished, will pur- 
chase you a gown. You may be certain of seeing me before the 
1st January, 1771 . — The clearance is immaterial. — My mother 
may expect more patterns. — Almost all the next Town and Coun- 
try Magazine is mine. I have an universal acquaintance; my 



2l6 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

company is courted everywhere; and, could I humble myself to 
go into a comptor, could have had twenty places before now; — 
but I must be among the great; state matters suit me better than 
commercial. The ladies are not out of my acquaintance. I 
have a deal of business now, and must therefore bid you adieu. 
You will have a longer letter from me soon — and more to the 
purpose. 

Yours, 

T. C. 

20th July, 1770. 

July drifted by in a fierce dogged struggle against 
bare necessity. He was like a land-bird blown out 
to sea and struggling with almost exhausted wings 
against the certain fate of the waves. August came, 
the great town was very dull, the magazines were 
inert, the powerful and rich and happy all gone 
away, the tired drudge of Brooke Street fighting on 
alone. Casting about for some hope when his for- 
tunes began to go awry he had thought of a position 
as surgeon's mate on a ship to Africa. In these 
deepening troubles the idea recurred to him. He 
had studied medicine and probably knew as much 
of it as many practising physicians of that age. In 
one of his letters to his mother he had given such 
advice for the treatment of a sick friend of the family 
as showed that he could put his studies to practical 
use. To be surgeon's mate on an African ship in 
those days required no more abstruse medical knowl- 
edge than the correct doses of a few standard drugs 



NOW CRACKS A NOBLE HEART 217 

and how to set a broken limb. Chatterton felt 
that he possessed so much. But to secure the posi- 
tion it was needful that he should have an endorse- 
ment, and he turned to his old friend Barrett of 
Bristol. Writing to Catcott August 12, after some 
paragraphs of apparently light-hearted raillery and 
comments of no moment, through which disguise it 
is quite possible to see the tortured soul, he brings on 
at the last, with an obviously assumed unconcern, the 
plea that prompted the letter: 

"I intend going abroad as a surgeon. Mr. Barrett has it in 
his power to assist me greatly, by his giving me a physical charac- 
ter. I hope he will. I trouble you with a copy of an Essay I 
intend publishing," etc. 

He wrote also to Barrett himself, preferring the 
same request. About August 18 he had Barrett's 
answer. It consisted of a cold refusal. 1 

At Mrs. Angell's he had the attic, square and, for 
an attic, rather large. It had dormer latticed win- 
dows that looked toward the street. In front of the 
windows were a gutter and a low parapet wall, but 
with an effort it was possible for one to look down 
upon the passing throngs below. The roof every- 

1 Even this gratuitous cruelty has not lacked its defenders. There was 
practically no science of medicine in those days. Scores of men that knew 
far less about drugs than Chatterton knew were afloat as surgeon's mates. 
When Smollett went to sea in that capacity he probably was not so well 
equipped for the post as Chatterton would have been. 



2l8 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

where was so low that in the highest place the boy 
could hardly stand erect with his hat on. It sloped 
gradually from the ridge-pole to the windows, which 
admitted the morning sunlight when any might be, 
and from which there was a view of St. Paul's Cathe- 
dral dome. Over it morning after morning he saw the 
sun rise as he sat toiling at his tasks, and again the 
afternoon come and gild it, the great curves look 
ruddy, the last glow fade slowly away as the day died. 
So much it had meant to him in his dreams! This 
was the very sign of the wonderful London that back 
in Bristol, where his mother and sister were, he had 
so often pictured to himself. About that great dome 
were the shops of the book-sellers that were to have 
made him famous and brought for him the money 
to make the household happy. His works were to 
have been sold about that place, he had always 
thought so, and now there were only cold looks and 
shut doors. It was all so different; so different from 
those first good days, even. The publishers had wel- 
comed him then, and had wanted him to write more 
and more, and now no one seemed to care for any- 
thing he wrote. Hamilton, of the Town and Coun- 
try, had been glad to print "Elinoure and Juga," 
and now he rejected that "Excelente Balade of 
Charitie," that the boy knew was worth a dozen 
of the other. And the battlefield was quite de- 
serted and silent; only a few weeks ago he was a 



NOW CRACKS A NOBLE HEART 219 

leader among men, and now he was forgotten, the 
army he had fought with beaten and dispersed. 
There was the reward of his labor justly due him, 
and to every intimation that he would like to have 
the debt paid he received nothing but black looks 
and frigid answers. The world had been against 
him from the first. He had been beaten for reading 
and dreaming about the tomb of Canynge, when he 
meant no harm to any one, but only wanted to be 
alone with his thoughts and his tears. He had been 
beaten for writing poetry, and how could that hurt 
any one or be a crime ? Only because he was a boy 
and poor and obscure he had been despised and 
insulted by the man to whom he had turned 
for help. And now the world of men, so much 
bigger and stronger than he, was cheating him of the 
earnings of his toil because he was a boy, merely a 
boy. Was there any place in the world for the weak 
and the unhappy ? What was all mankind organ- 
ized for but for the strong to prey upon the weak and 
to trample to success over broken hearts ? And it was 
all so different from what he had imagined. Where 
were all his bright dreams now ? And what should 
he say to his mother that had expected such glo- 
rious achievement from him ? And there was the 
dome, the symbol of his hope, and every morning it 
shone upon him just as it had shone when the world 
was bright and his future so alluring. And of all 
that what remained ? 



220 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

One thing was certain, the little household at 
Bristol must know nothing about his distress. So 
he set himself to compose a letter in his old vein of 
raillery and good spirits. He jested as usual about 
the people he had met and the things he had seen, 
and told them a story — very doubtful — about an 
adventure of his own in a graveyard where he said 
he had accidentally fallen into a new-made grave, 
but had found the sexton under him and emerged 
with laughter. But all would not do; the gaiety was 
too forced to deceive the ready clairvoyance of a 
mother. Mrs. Chatterton saw from this letter that 
something was wrong, that the boy was trying to con- 
ceal something from her, and from that time she was 
distressed about him. She called in Mrs. Edkins 
to read to her the letter and tell her fears about it, 
and the two wept over the reading. It was all gay 
and brave and light-hearted, but in it there was a 
note of forced laughter more terrifying than despair. 

And yet in his misery he fronted the world with 
unshaken courage and a heart as tender as brave. 
A part of the last money he received he had devoted 
to the happiness and comfort of the little household 
at Bristol, and now, wretched as he was, he heard 
the appeals of others in trouble like his own. His 
last little pocket-book, recently acquired by the Bristol 
Museum, tells the story entered in his neat hand and 
with his methodical care. There was owing to him, 



NOW CRACKS A NOBLE HEART 221 

it shows, ^io, 17s. 6d. for the articles that he had 
sent to the magazines. And there are two little 
entries that lay bare his very soul. "Lent 2s." and 
"Lent is. 6d." There was no distress that could 
chill the boundless generosity of that spirit. 

At last his money was all gone; for some days he 
had been starving. His wan, haggard face and 
feverish anxiety began to attract attention. At the 
corner of Brooke Street and Holborn, a short dis- 
tance from Mrs. Angell's, one Cross, a kindly man, 
kept an apothecary shop. Chatterton had made 
some acquaintance with him and it had fared with 
him as with all other capable minds that knew the 
boy; the charm of brilliant conversation, the poise, 
the frank manner, and the marvelous eyes had won 
him with the rest. He suspected that all was not well 
with his young friend and cautiously invited him to 
dine. Chatterton declined; but the invitation being 
renewed on several occasions as Cross observed the 
j boy passing in the street, at last it was accepted and 
! Cross was rather shocked to see how voraciously his 
guest ate. Mrs. Angell, too, a motherly good soul, 
I had an eye on him. She was confident that for two 
days together he had eaten nothing, and waylaying 
him on the stairs urged him to share her meal. But 
j something in the well-meant invitation went awry 
j and struck up that overweening pride. He curtly 
refused and assured her he was not hungry. 



222 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

This was on August 24, 1770, when he was seven- 
teen years and nine months old. Some time before he 
had obtained a little arsenic, some persons have sup- 
posed of Cross on the plea that he wished to poison 
the rats in his chamber. On this evening he retired as 
usual to his room. They heard him walking about 
there a little, but so he did often. Through what 
solemn agony he passed in those hours is only to be 
surmised. He opened his little trunk and took from 
it manuscript after manuscript and tore each into 
minute fragments, the fruits of his labor, the dear 
children of his thoughts that he had reared in his 
loneliness and pain, the hurt father turning upon and 
rending all. And that done, he mixed his arsenic 
with water and drank it, and throwing himself upon 
his little bed, he died. 

In the morning they broke open his door and found 
him there, dead in the ruins of so much hope. The 
world of London roared on and never knew how 
great a soul it had trampled under its careless heel. 
Of him lying dead in his attic chamber a scant half- 
dozen strangers took heed. The coroner came and 
held a perfunctory inquest, making no notes and in 
haste to be gone; Mrs. Angell, her husband, and a 
neighbor testified, the verdict of suicide was reached, 
the permit issued, the coroner went about his busi- 
ness. The men from the parish workhouse came 
with a rude coffin and bore ofF the poor little body, 




The House where Chatterton Died, No. 39 Brooke Street, London 

{.From an old print in the possession of the Bristol Museum.) 



NOW CRACKS A NOBLE HEART 223 

and that night it went to the potter's field of the Shoe 
Lane workhouse. Nobody took note of the event; 
the newspapers printed no word of it, Wilkes on the 
Continent, Fell and Edmunds in prison, heard nothing 
about it; and on the registry of St. Andrews, Holborn, 1 
in which parish lay Brooke Street and Shoe Lane, 
the rare melodist thus made mute was entered as 
"William Chatterton." 

Yet at that moment Dr. Fry, of Oxford, the one 
man in all England that had perceived the surpassing 
wonder of the Rowley poems, whether true or false, 
was preparing a journey to Bristol to find this mar- 
velous young man and assist him if he should 
need help. And yet at that moment the miserly 
Hamilton owed him several pounds for work he had 
accepted and that he continued to publish for more 
than a year. 

But perhaps his last resting place may not have 
been in the lost promiscuity of the potter's field; the 

1 Remarkable coincidences attend this strange story. The rector of St. Andrews, 
Holborn, in which parish Brooke Street is situated, was Chatterton's old acquaint- 
ance and adversary at Bristol, the Rev. Dr. Broughton, and it was in the 
registry of his church that the erroneous name was entered in noting the burial. 
Broughton was at St. Andrews all the time that Chatterton lived in Brooke Street, 
but though Chatterton knew this very well he made no effort to see the former 
Bristolian. 

While he was still in Lambert's office Chatterton seems to have become deeply 
impressed with the story of Richard Savage, the unfortunate poet. In several of 
the acknowledged poems are sympathetic references to Savage, whose joyless life 
and melancholy fate resembled his own. Now Savage was born in Brooke Street 
where Chatterton died, and died in Bristol where Chatterton was born. 



224 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

veil of that restless spirit may have come home to the 
shadow of the church he loved, and the churchyard 
where as a little boy he used to run about holding the 
sexton's fingers. Some reasons exist to believe that 
his mother, most desirous that her son might be 
buried in consecrated ground, sent word to a rela- 
tive of hers in London, a carpenter, who reclaimed 
the body and sent it in a box to Bristol. Over it, in 
the upper part of her house, the mother held a secret 
vigil, showing it to but one friend, and at night 
Phillips, the sexton, now an old man and near his 
own death, took the little form and buried it by 
stealth in the yard of St. Mary's. The very spot is 
pointed out: it is "to the south of the church on the 
right hand side of the lime-tree in the middle paved 
walk in Redcliffe church-yard," where his father 
and mother and sister lie. In the morning the 
shadow of St. Mary Redcliffe falls upon it and at 
noon the clear sunlight. A strange hush seems 
always to dwell in that churchyard, deep and unend- 
ing peace is there in the heart of the great city; the 
thick trees shut out the world, all day falls scarcely a 
footstep, and sitting there I have heard the strains 
of the organ playing Mendelssohn's "Consolation" 
as if from a great way off*. 



VII 

The World's Verdict 

So the wonderful voice passed to silence, but the 
songs it had sung had only begun to live. At first 
the boy's death made no ripple on the current of 
passing events. If Barrett and Catcott, who had 
so much profited by their young friend, were grieved 
by his loss, they made no record of their feelings. 
The first tribute of which we have record is an elegy 
that Chatterton's friend, Thomas Cary, published in 
the Town and Country Magazine for October of that 
year. It was full of genuine feeling; Chatterton 
must have meant much to Cary, judging by his affec- 
tionate and unstudied phrases. It was six months 
before there was further reference to the story. Dr. 
Fry, of Oxford, had made his journey to Bristol and 
collected some fragments of the Rowley poems. Per- 
haps through his agency they had been brought to 
the attention of Oliver Goldsmith. At a dinner of 
the Royal Academy, April 23, 1 771, Goldsmith an- 
nounced to the company, in which were Dr. John- 
son and all the distinguished literary men of London, 

that at Bristol had been discovered a store of ancient 

225 



226 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

poems, most wonderful and beautiful; that he had 
examined some of them and believed them to be 
genuine. Among the diners was Horace Walpole. 
He pricked up his ears when he heard this announce- 
ment and, of course, did not fail to tell the company 
that he knew all about the poems and the person 
that had discovered them, and he related the verdict 
of Gray and Mason. Goldsmith still protested his 
faith in Rowley, and the talk going on it came out 
presently from Goldsmith's own lips that the discov- 
erer of Rowley had been in London and had killed 
himself there. So much the good Goldsmith had 
been at pains to discover. 

This introduction to the attention of the literary 
world of London naturally bore fruit in inquiries 
about the poems and the boy that said he had found 
them. Interested persons began to visit and write 
to Bristol, asking about these matters. The Rowley 
manuscripts began to be sought for. Most of them 
were in the hands of Catcott, and this person finally 
conceiving that there might be commercial value in 
productions that he had regarded as mere curiosities, 
executed a stroke of business for himself by purchas- 
ing from Mrs. Chatterton such of the boy's manu- 
scripts as she possessed. As he gave her five guineas 
for these papers and subsequently sold them to a Lon- 
don publisher for fifty pounds the profit would seem 
to have been fair. The inquiries steadily increased; 



THE WORLD'S VERDICT 227 

requests for permission to copy the manuscripts in 
the hands of Barrett and Catcott were frequently 
made. In three years after Chatterton's death the 
Earl of Lichfield possessed a fairly good collection 
of these copies, and literary men frequently debated 
of their genuineness. In 1776 Johnson and Boswell 
joined the pilgrims to Bristol, and Johnson made 
some investigation of the evidences for Rowley, 
which Catcott and Barrett, and indeed all Bristol, 
implicitly believed in. Johnson quickly saw that 
Catcott was a foolish person and that the poems were 
of modern manufacture; but in the end, although 
the acknowledgment overturned his favorite theory 
that no untrained mind can notably achieve, he 
owned the boy's amazing genius. "This is the 
most extraordinary young man that has encountered 
my knowledge," he said; "it is wonderful how the 
whelp has written such things." 

In 1777 the constantly growing interest in the 
poems had reached a point where publication was de- 
manded, and a small edition of Rowley, made up from 
the Barrett and Catcott manuscripts, was printed in 
London by Tyrwhitt. This was reissued the next 
year with some additional matter. Four years later 
appeared another and much fuller volume, and in 
1794 the pretentious Cambridge edition, edited by 
Lancelot Sharpe. For reasons to be dealt with 
hereafter the poems had become the first subject 



228 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

of concern in the learned world. And yet while 
scholars were studying Chatterton's works and kind- 
hearted men and women were grieving over his fate, 
Catcott and Barrett went their way unaffected. 
From Catcott, indeed, not much was to be expected 
at any time except froth and folly, but what are we 
to make of the strange silence of Barrett ? He knew 
for how much of his "History and Antiquities" he 
was indebted to this boy; he knew that he him- 
self had assisted in the Burgum pedigree and the 
Walpole correspondence, both presently the subject 
of controversy or comment; he knew that he had been 
Chatterton's closest and most intimate acquaintance; 
he knew how much he had been confidant and coun- 
selor to that sorely-tried spirit. He knew, too, how 
much the pretended antiques furnished by Chatterton 
had differed from the genuine documents supplied 
by Morgan, and knew how in the boy's last extremity 
he had withheld the helping hand that would have 
saved that extraordinary life. But whatever secrets 
that frigid bosom held went with him to the grave. 
He made no sign about them. He was living in 
Bristol when Chatterton's mother and sister were 
in the utmost distress and poverty; he never mani- 
fested the slightest interest in them. His little round 
of life lay in his book; his only concern was to secure 
for himself unclouded the glory of that marvelous 
achievement, and he was obviously annoyed that 



THE WORLD'S VERDICT 229 

people should think about Chatterton when they 
might be thinking about Barrett. In a last chapter, 
devoted to biographical notices of eminent sons of 
Bristol, he had much to say of Rowley, but of 
Chatterton, only a cold and incidental line about "T. 
Chatterton, the producer of Rowley and his poems 
to the world," and a harsh comment about his 
"horrible end" and "libertine principles." 1 

But elsewhere, when it was too late, an effort was 
made to balance the world's account with this great 
spirit. Two kind-hearted men, of Bristol birth, 
Robert Southey, the poet, and Joseph Cottle, were 
especially moved by the story and cast about to be 
of some service to the family. Mrs. Chatterton had 
died in 1791 . Mary had been married and widowed, 
and with her children was living in dire poverty, 
visited and somewhat relieved by Hannah More, 
who was also of Bristol, and from the natural good- 
ness of her heart benevolently interested in the 
Chattertons. Southey and Cottle were not rich, 
but they did what they could; they edited and pub- 
lished in 1803 the best edition of Chatterton's works 
that had so far appeared, and they gave the entire 
proceeds to Mary. She died in 1804, leaving a 
daughter, who was supported by the income money 

1 It should not be inferred that this phrase coming from such a source has 
any bearing on the question of Chatterton's character. In those days all 
persons that doubted the divine right of kings or questioned the inerrancy 
of the scriptures were likely to be subjected to such comment. 



230 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

from the Southey and Cottle edition until her death 
in 1807. She was the last of the Chattertons. 

A great and invaluable part of our knowledge of 
the records of Thomas Chatterton's life we owe to 
an incident in no way connected with it, and to the 
intrusion of one of the most singular figures in Eng- 
lish literature. On the night of April 7, 1779, one 
Hackman, a clergyman whose career had also in- 
cluded service as an officer in the 66th regiment 
of the British Army, startled London by shooting 
a popular actress named Miss Ray as she was 
leaving Covent Garden Theater. He had long 
been madly in love with her and had made violent 
proposals of marriage. It appears that when she 
refused him he determined to kill himself in her 
presence, but unluckily changed his intention and 
shot her instead. The event was a nine days' sen- 
sation in London and suggested to the Rev. Sir 
Herbert Croft the writing of a very strange book 
called "Love and Madness," which consisted of 
pretended letters of Hackman to Miss Ray and her 
replies. This pseudo-correspondence dealt with love, 
lovers, and suicide, with Goethe and the "Sorrows 
of Werther," and finally at some length with the 
story of Chatterton. The inclusion was both repul- 
sive and grotesque, for Chatterton was never in 
love and assuredly he was not insane, but we need 
not quarrel with the motives that produced results 



THE WORLD'S VERDICT 231 

of so much importance. To prepare himself to 
deal with the Chatterton story Croft made laborious, 
painstaking investigations. He went out to Shore- 
ditch and interviewed Mrs. Ballance and the honest 
plasterer and his family. He talked with the young 
man that had been Chatterton's roommate. He ex- 
amined them in detail, like a prosecuting attorney. 
He went to Brooke Street and tried to find Mrs. 
Angell. He hunted up the coroner that had held 
the inquest. He discovered and preserved some of 
Chatterton's best letters. He went to Bristol and 
saw Mrs. Chatterton and others. He had a mind 
insatiable of details and a faculty for persistent 
inquiry that in our day would have made him a 
priceless reporter for a newspaper. He went over 
all the ground, asking innumerable questions and 
making voluminous notes, and as most of the per- 
sons that had known Chatterton were still living, 
"Love and Madness" became the great storehouse 
of information about the last days of the unfortunate 
boy. He had, to tell the truth, no great sympathy 
with the case, nor with Chatterton's art, but his 
unsympathetic attitude made his investigations all the 
better for us. From all the persons he interviewed, 
from the dwellers in Shoreditch and in Brooke Street, 
from Cross the apothecary, and the rest, the testi- 
mony he obtained was uniformly of the boy's blame- 
less life, prodigious industry, and goodness of heart. 



232 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

Not a word indicated loose conduct, not a suggestion 
reflected on his character. And of his endowment, 
Croft, his inquiries finished, declared that "no such 
human being, at any period of life, has ever been 
known or possibly ever will be known." This 
unequivocal testimony by one that knew more about 
Chatterton's real life than any other writer has known, 
has been overlooked by all but one of Chatterton's 
biographers. It could hardly be more explicit or 
convincing. Whoever will take the trouble now to 
examine the products of this unaccountable mind, 
the incomprehensible record of his labors, the 
achievements in so many directions, the versatility 
and power, will agree with me that Croft's verdict 
was not extravagant. All in all this was certainly 
the most wonderful intellect that the English-speak- 
ing race has ever produced with the one exception of 
Shakespeare, and the boy that possessed it was 
driven by starvation to kill himself before he was 
eighteen years old. 

Several biographical sketches of Chatterton had 
appeared in connection with editions of his works or 
independently, but the first extensive and formal 
life was published in 1837 by John Dix. Unluckily 
it mixed imaginary details with the attested gather- 
ings of Croft and others until few puzzles are more 
trying than to tell where Dix's facts left off and his 
fancies began. He managed to increase the biog- 



THE WORLD'S VERDICT 233 

rapher's difficulties in other ways, for not only have 
his imaginings been incorporated with the texture 
of the narrative, but they have had ingenious em- 
broidery from other hands. But there is scarcely 
a story in English history that has been more be- 
fuddled. Dix raised the question of Chatterton's 
burial place by printing (for the first time) in an 
appendix the statement of George Cumberland (to 
which I am coming shortly), concerning his investi- 
gations in Bristol in 1808. No effort was made 
by Dix to corroborate this statement, although he 
spent some time in Bristol where there was at least 
one person that might have made a good witness. 

Nothing- could now be of keener concern to those 
that feel an interest in this friendless boy than to 
know the truth about this matter, but the time has 
long gone by when the truth could be ascertained. 
The story of the midnight burial is thoroughly dis- 
believed in Bristol, and has been discredited by most 
writers about Chatterton, although the incredulity of 
the writers is of no moment since the bulk of such 
writing has been done to suit prejudice or precon- 
ceived theory and without much regard to the testi- 
mony. Between inherent improbability and direct 
statement the balance seems even. There was one 
person in Bristol, aside from the Chattertons, that 
would be likely to knowof the burial, if there had been 
such a thing. That Mrs. Edkins, their lifelong and 



234 



THOMAS CHATTERTON 



devoted friend, Chatterton's companion in his trips 
among the beggars, Mrs. Chatterton's close associ- 
ate, would know if anybody knew. Accordingly, 
in 1853, the handful of students that followed the 
Chatterton story was startled by a statement from 
Mr. Joseph Cottle, who, as we have seen, was one 
of Chatterton's editors, declaring that Mrs. Edkins 
had verified the whole story. Curiously enough the 
verification had not been given to him but to the 
same George Cumberland that Dix had quoted, and 
Cumberland had transmitted it to Cottle. Accord- 
ing to Cottle Mrs. Edkins had said : " Mrs. Chatterton 
was passionately fond of her darling and only son, 
Thomas; and, when she heard he had destroyed 
himself, she immediately wrote to a relation of hers, 
a carpenter, urging him to send home his body in a 
coffin or box. The box was accordingly sent down 
to Bristol; and when I called on my friend, Mrs. 
Chatterton, to condole with her, she, as a very great 
secret, took me up-stairs and showed me the box; 
and removing the lid I saw the poor boy whilst his 
mother sobbed in silence. She told me that she 
should have him taken out in the middle of the night, 
and bury him in Redcliffe churchyard. Afterwards 
when I saw her she said she had managed it very 
well, so that none but the sexton and his assistant 
knew anything about it. This secrecy was necessary, 
as he could not be buried in consecrated ground." 



THE WORLD'S VERDICT 235 

This seemed conclusive enough on the face of it, 
but its credibility weakened on examination. The 
statement from Cumberland that Dix printed in his 
appendix gave a very different version of his con- 
versation with Mrs. Edkins, and one that contained 
no reference to the box or the burial. But a Mrs. 
Stockwell, who had likewise been an intimate friend 
of Mrs. Chatterton's and one of her pupils, certainly 
told Cumberland that the boy was buried in Red- 
cliffe and indicated the spot. She said Mrs. Chatter- 
ton had assured her in confidence of this and told 
her all about the arrival of the body and the burial 
by Phillips. She gave a circumstantial account, also, 
of a permission that Mrs. Chatterton had given to 
one Hutchinson to bury his child over her son's grave, 
and how much Mrs. Chatterton had subsequently 
regretted this. Some minor points in this narrative 
were subsequently corroborated, but the main fact 
remained undetermined. Mrs. Chatterton, her 
daughter, and the sexton had died before any one 
thought it worth while to investigate the matter; 
if the sexton performed the burial he never mentioned 
it to his family; and all chance of direct confirmation 
was lost. The question takes on a phase of still 
more painful interest because fifty years after 
Chatterton's death Shoe Lane workhouse was torn 
down to make room for Farringdon market and, with 
callous indifference, the bodies in the potter's field 



236 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

near by were dug up and carted away, no one knows 
whither. It is hard to think of the body of Thomas 
Chatterton thrown upon a rubbish heap. After 
spending much time in Bristol and weighing the 
scraps of evidence, guesses, and surmises obtainable 
from many sources, it seems to me clear that Mr. 
Cottle, who was very old when he wrote his state- 
ment, confused Mrs. Edkins with Mrs. Stockwell, 
and on Mrs. Stockwell's testimony, with the slight 
collateral facts Cumberland was able to obtain, rests 
all the story of the burial in Redcliffe churchyard. 
Edward Bell, who has written of Chatterton more 
intelligently than any other man except Professor 
Wilson, of Toronto, gives credence to the story and 
unfeignedly I wish that I could. 

But in the meantime Rowley and Chatterton had 
shaken the literary world. The third edition of the 
poems had been printed in 1782, and on its issuing 
began the most extraordinary controversy in English 
literature, the most extraordinary, the least reason- 
able, and on the whole, the most humiliating. The 
last shot in that warfare was fired in 1857, and be- 
tween the dates there had been more sound and 
fury over what signified nothing than can be paralleled 
in modern history. 

The inspiration and pilot of the edition of 1782 
was an unfortunate gentleman named Jeremiah 
Milles, who happened, by some grotesque freak of 



THE WORLD'S VERDICT 237 

fate, to be president of the Society of Antiquaries. 
He was also D.D. and Dean of Exeter. He illumined 
his editing with a long "Commentary" full of pre- 
tentious ignorance, in which, in his own phrase, he 
"considered and defended" the antiquity of the 
poems. It is not too much to say that the average 
high school boy of Kansas or Oklahoma would blush 
to display the Dean's crass ignorance about the 
English language and its literature. Sad, indeed, 
was the spectacle afforded; the whole futility of 
English scholarship and the English University 
seemed to be laid bare. This D.D. and President 
of the Society of Antiquaries knew nothing of the 
history of the English stage and drama, nothing of 
the development of his language, nothing of medieval 
life and customs. He did not know that discovery of 
such a drama as "Aella" purporting to be of the 
fifteenth century would be like discovery of a repeat- 
ing rifle among the weapons of the Stone age. He 
knew nothing about the history of English poetry; it 
never occurred to him that the Rowley poems were 
written in a highly developed melodic strain and that 
melody had existed in English verse hardly two cen- 
turies. He knew nothing about Chaucer, nothing 
about Lydgate, nothing about the intellectual state of 
the Saxons, nothing about their history or manners, 
and of Rowley, Turgot, Abbot John, Bishop This 
and Bishop That, the long list of impossible Saxon 



238 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

painters and all the rest he made one meal and was 
ready to swallow more. To his mind the Rowley 
poems were indubitable, and to crown his absurdities 
with a perfect climax he founded much of his argu- 
ment upon internal evidence. 

On the appearance of this wondrous document the 
lists were set and the coursing began. Malone and 
Tyrwhitt, the ablest scholars of their times, came 
out with powerful essays riddling Milles's arguments 
and showing a small part of the evidence of modern 
origin that in this day is obvious to practically every 
reader. In that day it had to be dragged out and 
laid in courses like stones for a house. Warton, of 
Oxford, author of a history of English poetry and an 
authority enormously overrated in his day, fought on 
the same side. This seemed a powerful phalanx; it 
was assaulted with a ponderous tome written by one 
Jacob Bryant and rejoicing in the name of "Bryant's 
Observations," in which all that Milles had said was 
enforced and with painstaking imbecility endless 
chapters of new argument were added. The maga- 
zines rang with this clishmaclaver; Rowleyans and 
Anti-Rowleyans ran tilts in every periodical. Dr. 
Fry, President of St. Johns, Oxford; Henry Dampier, 
Dean of Durham; Rayner Hickford, of Waxted; Lord 
Lyttleton and others, championed Rowley and sup- 
ported Bryant and Milles. The number of learned 
men willing to exhibit themselves as knowing nothing 



THE WORLD'S VERDICT 239 

of their own tongue or country steadily increased, 
no doubt for the refreshing by innocent merriment 
of future generations, and it seemed impossible to 
get the simplest facts of philological research estab- 
lished so that these unfortunate persons would 
recognize them. A new generation had come and 
gone before it began widely to be admitted that the 
Rowley poems had no other origin than in the fer- 
tile mind of Thomas Chatterton. Even so late as 
1857, as I have said, a gentleman writing in "Notes 
and Queries "was still unconvinced and probably died 
unshaken in the Rowley faith, and in 1865 a writer 
in a London magazine argued that part, at least, of 
the Rowley romance was true. 

The controversy may have been wholesome for 
English scholarship, inasmuch as it showed in a 
powerful manner how much less educated English- 
men knew of their own language than they knew of 
Latin and Greek; but it was ill for the fame of 
Thomas Chatterton. A short cut to prove that 
Rowley did write the poems was to show that 
Chatterton could not have written them; and for 
all that regard human nature as an alluring study 
it should be instructive to note that the favorite 
way to this proof was by asserting Chatterton to 
have been of dissolute habits and ordinary endow- 
ments. To this cheerful pursuit was much aid in 
the inevitable tendency of the British mind to moral- 



240 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

ize for the benefit of the Young Person. Chatterton 
was a boy, he held rationalistic beliefs, he told fibs, 
he came to a bad end. Naturally, then, all must be 
of one pattern; to admit that anything he did was 
good was to endanger the morals of the Rising 
Generation. Extraordinary are the chances of Geog- 
raphy. If Chatterton had been born 240 miles 
S. E. by E. of Bristol, no one would have thought 
it essential that he be pilloried for the public good. 
In England it has been different, and to this day 
English writers, including many that have not read 
and some that could not understand his works, have 
not ceased to execrate him. Every line of his writ- 
ings, every -chance expression in his letters, every 
unfavorable recollection of those that had not liked 
or had envied him, has been exhumed and twisted 
into a derogatory significance. Following the licen- 
tious manner of the times, he gave pen to much idle 
and some objectionable matter, and all this has been 
cited as proof that he was a libertine and depraved 
person. The obvious fact that the enormous quan- 
tity of the work he turned out made it impossible 
that he should have time for dissipation has been 
conveniently neglected, with the testimony of his 
London relatives as to the unvarying regularity of 
his habits, and his own statement of his innate 
abhorrence of the ways of vice. His innocent ad- 
dresses to various young women of Bristol have been 



THE WORLD'S VERDICT 241 

tortured into meaning that he was a sad rake, his 
admiration for Wilkes and his bold attacks upon 
monarchy have been used to show his revolutionary 
and dangerous character, and over all have been 
spread the lurid colors of that word "forgery." 
The mere sound of it is enough. Forgery! Here 
was a "forger" and all the prejudices of a com- 
mercial age and race have pursued him up and 
down until the truth has been obscured to the gen- 
eral mind that this was a most wonderful intellect, 
that here were gifts as far beyond our understand- 
ing as Shakespeare's, that he was only a boy, and 
that the gross world trod out his light before it had 
more than flamed up once. 

For some of this there is possible excuse in the 
heat and fury of controversy; but for the most of it, 
none. It is commonly assumed, among those that 
have never taken the trouble to investigate the story, 
that Chatterton put his fabrications upon the world, 
as Macpherson put his, for hire and salary; and the 
gratuitous assumption has done this unfortunate boy 
additional wrong. As a matter of fact, very few 
of the Rowley papers saw the light during their 
author's lifetime, and from all of his writings in 
imitation of the antique, of whatsoever kind, he can 
hardly have had so much as three pounds. The 
essence of forgery is an intent to defraud. Acres of 
paper covered with imitated handwritings would 



242 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

not constitute forgery unless they were used to 
gain something of value. When Chatterton died 
the mass of the Rowley poems were manuscripts 
in the hands of Barrett and Catcott. It was the 
publication of "Elinoure and Juga" and one or 
two others, and the incessant babbling of Catcott, that 
finally brought Rowley to the attention of antiquari- 
ans and thus to the notice of Dr. Fry, who was the 
first person to take any real interest in the matter. 
What, then, is more unjust than to class Thomas 
Chatterton with sordid impostors like Macpherson 
and Ireland ? It was with no purpose of gain that 
he gave life to his dreams. But being born an artist, 
and his soul being wrapped in a certain subject, it 
was beyond his control that he should give expres- 
sion to the things whereon he brooded and in the 
shape that answered to his visions. And this point 
has been consistently overlooked, that the Rowley 
romance was a thing apart from anything he did for 
money, that it represented only the artistic side of his 
nature, that in all human probability he could no 
more avoid the form of expression his work took 
than a painter can avoid putting into his painting 
the characteristics of his individual style. But mon- 
strous injustice has been, from the time of his birth, 
the lot of this boy. No part of the strange story 
seems stranger than this, that dead now one hundred 
and thirty-seven years, the world still looks askance 



THE WORLD'S VERDICT 243 

at him, and chiefly for the sake of the name 
applied to his work by the one man in England hav- 
ing the least right to condemn any one that did 
that particular thing. "If literary forgery were the 
capital offense," says Professor Wilson, "the same 
gallows should have sufficed for Walpole and Chat- 
terton." 

A few sympathetic souls bore heavily upon the 
Earl of Orford when the facts were revealed about 
the wonderful genius that had been sacrificed to 
indifference and neglect. Bitter comments were 
made in many places, and at last the noble earl took 
up his own defense. He had the bad taste to print 
a letter in which he thought to better his position by 
assailing the memory of the dead. He sneered at 
Chatterton's work, distorted what had happened 
between them, and set afloat or gave prominence 
to all the reports that were derogatory to his char- 
acter. On other occasions he lied most outrageously 
about the affair. He denied having received the 
letters that he had answered, he accused Chatterton 
of betraying the cause in which he was enlisted, and 
his word as a nobleman bore such weight that men 
that should have known better were swayed out of 
a normal judgment. He had pretended that he 
was quite indifferent to Chatterton's cutting satires 
against him; he demonstrated that not only was he 
hurt by what the boy had written, but that he was 



244 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

capable of the ignoble revenge of maligning one no 
longer able to defend himself. 

The truth is that Walpole is the sole authority for 
the idea that Chatterton was dissolute. You will 
find it advanced without proof, without reason, by 
his every biographer, but there is extant not one 
particle of evidence to support it and through all its 
reappearances it can be traced back, link by link, in 
an unfailing chain until we come to Walpole's letter of 
defense, and there we can put finger upon the source 
of all the slanders. Walpole asserts them; the first 
man echoes Walpole, the second man parrots the first, 
and so on from tome to tome the falsehood flies and 
gathers bulk. Walpole never saw Chatterton, had 
no knowledge of his ways or life or habits, never 
knew anybody that knew him, had no way to learn 
of these matters, and founded his adroitly worded 
accusation on a chance expression of Chatterton's 
in a letter to his sister: "I am this moment pierced 
through the heart by the black eye of a young lady," 
and the like innocent jocoserie. Upon this and upon 
nothing else. I have patiently searched out every 
line that has been written on this subject and have 
assured myself that Walpole's animadversions, as 
taken up and enlarged upon by those that desired 
for their own purposes to belittle Chatterton, were 
the one origin of all this most singular prejudice. 

It was Walpole again that started the "forgery" 



THE WORLD'S VERDICT 245 

idea: "all the house of forgery are relations," he says, 
and proceeds to assert that Chatterton having 
succeeded in "forging" old poems would probably 
have gone on to forge notes of hand. The next 
edition of this humane remark appears in the Intro- 
duction to an early edition of Chatterton's Miscel- 
lanies in which the writer takes the cheerful view 
that Chatterton's early death was no great matter 
since if he had lived he would surely have been 
hanged. Of course, this is merely Walpole's sug- 
gestion clothed in other words. From that day to 
this the notion has somehow clung to the human 
intellect; Chatterton was a forger; all forgers are 
criminals and detestable creatures; therefore do not 
read Chatterton's works. 

Again, without exception the biographers have 
taken as true the assertion that Chatterton wrote 
on both sides of the issue between king and people. 
Even Professor Wilson calls him for this a "venal 
young politician," and yet when this charge has been 
traced back from hand to hand we find it to have 
exactly the same basis as the other, that is to say 
Walpole's assertion and a mere phrase in one of 
Chatterton's letters to his sister. "He is a poor 
author, who cannot write on both sides," said the 
boy, and on these words have been based page upon 
page of moral disquisition and sage reproof. Walpole 
asserted that he had seen a manuscript signed 



246 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

"Moderator," and written by Chatterton, in which 
the king's attitude towards the people of London 
was defended and praised. He did not say how he 
knew it was Chatterton's, nor where he saw it, nor 
when, nor who had it at the time, nor what became 
of it afterward. No one else has ever seen it, nor 
heard of anybody that had heard of anybody that 
had seen it. Nobody knows where it is now. But 
on the strength of such testimony the boy's char- 
acter has been assailed. 1 

1 Here I feel impelled to give an illustration of the ease and fluency with 
which "Chatterton Incidents" have been supplied. 

"Three days before his death, when walking with a friend in St. Pancras 
churchyard, reading the epitaphs, he was so deep in thought as he walked on, 
that not perceiving a grave which was just dug, he fell into it: his friend, 
observing his situation, came to his assistance, and as he helped him out, told 
him in a jocular manner, he was happy in beholding the resurrection of 
genius. Poor Chatterton smiled, and taking his companion by the arm, re- 
plied, 'My dear friend, I feel the sting of a speedy dissolution. I have been 
at war with the grave for some time, and find it not so easy to vanquish as 
I imagined; we can find an asylum from every creditor but that.''" 

For this engaging specimen of fictional art we are indebted to Dix (Life 
of Chatterton, p. 290). It is pure invention. In the last letter to his 
mother Chatterton wrote in a merry strain of falling into a grave upon the 
sexton at work therein and bouncing out laughingly. Upon this slight founda- 
tion and none other Dix reared the airy structure of his incident, not hesitat- 
ing to supply the conversation or any other accessory. Three days before 
Chatterton's death he was not wandering with a friend in St. Pancras 
churchyard, but struggling gaunt-eyed and famished in his little garret. 
But his entire life has been maimed and distorted for us by the like imagin- 
ings of the early biographers, Gregory, Chalmers, Dix and the rest, each 
incorporating a previous fantasy and adding something of his own. Now, 
why should all these writers feel at liberty to imagine the details of a life 
about which they knew nothing ? 



THE WORLD'S VERDICT 247 

It had been in the power of Horace Walpole to 
give Chatterton's works to the world and to save the 
life of one of the greatest geniuses that ever lived in 
any age or country, and his comment upon his con- 
duct in that affair was that "all the house of forgery 
are relations." He had himself been guilty of a 
far worse offense in that same line, and yet the 
accusations that he had the effrontery to make 
have outweighed the facts and done more to pervert 
the truth about Thomas Chatterton than any other 
cause. He was rich, powerful, titled, one of the 
great men of his day, and he set his wits to under- 
mine the character of the charity school boy that he 
had repulsed and unjustly treated, whose life he had 
embittered and of whose death he was not morally 
blameless. 

Thus year after year Thomas Chatterton has been 
brought by the bailiffs of British morals to be judged 
of his offense, tried by the application of such stand- 
ards as would befit one indicted for check-raising or 
counterfeiting, and unanimously condemned. For 
generations it seemed as if time would not ameliorate 
nor all the extenuating facts weigh against the sen- 
tence. To this day as often as he is mentioned he 
is regularly branded as the "Literary Forger." "It 
is such a dirty crime," says one of Charles Reade's 
characters, accused of forgery, and speaks a true 
word. It is like leprosy. Neither the literary nor 



248 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

the moral reputation of this boy has been able to 
stand against it. Shall there be anything good in 
a forger ? 

But suppose we see how this matter stands. 
Thomas Chatterton, aged fifteen, dreamer of dreams 
and assuredly born out of his true time, clothed his 
magnificent poetry in an antique dress and pre- 
tended that it had been written three hundred years 
before, and this he did, not for mercenary purposes, 
not for any profit he might secure, nor, very prob- 
ably, with any consciousness of deceit, but from 
some vague instinct of the requirements of an artistic 
setting. Macpherson, a mature man, manufactured 
his spurious Ossian stuff that he might with it swindle 
confiding historical societies and impose upon pub- 
lishers. It is a strange fact that in the literature of 
this subject the offense of the man Macpherson 
appears trivial compared with the misdoing of the 
lonely charity school boy. No one now cares to cas- 
tigate Macpherson; no one now issues books and 
writes articles to gibbet him as an awful warning to 
the young. The whole weight of abhorrence for liter- 
ary forging is reserved for the boy; the man goes free. 

Or take other illustrations. "Who wrote 
Otranto?" asks Chatterton in one of his satirical 
poems. He might well ask. When Walpole issued 
his novel the "Castle of Otranto" he palmed it 
upon an unsuspecting world as a translation of an 



THE WORLD'S VERDICT 249 

old Italian manuscript he had found, and for a 
long time that dull hoax deceived everybody. 
Yet no one now drags Horace Walpole to be 
judged at the bar of public opinion; no one calls 
the Earl of Orford "Literary Forger." Mere feign- 
ing about the origin of a manuscript has never (in 
other cases) been accounted a great matter. It has 
been done innumerable times without imping- 
ing upon the sensitive nerves of professional 
moralists. Many an honored or respectable writer 
of fiction from Scott to Stevenson has done it, often 
concealing his own name and share in the perform- 
ance, and no one has been mortally offended. This 
boy alone has been singled out for punishment. 

In spite of all, the flame he lighted has burned on 
steadily, year by year, his fame and the recognition 
of his influence have grown among his own gild. 
The poets knew at once that wonderful voice and 
gave heed to a new and supernal message. Coleridge 
studied Chatterton attentively and repaid part of 
what he learned in one of the most beautiful poems 
in the language. Blake yearned over him; Shelley ! 
understood and loved a spirit so much akin to his 
own; Keats sat at his feet, dedicated "Endymion" 
to his memory, and took from his works one 
of the most celebrated and beautiful of his pic- 

1 Do but compare carefully the "Hymn of Apollo" with the stanzas from 
"Aella" that are given on p. 145. 



25° 



THOMAS CHATTERTON 



tures; 1 Wordsworth knew what the voice meant and 
paid it the tribute of his tears and of a deathless 
sonnet; Robert Buchanan sang again and again in 
his honor; Rossetti brought wreath after wreath for 
his unknown shrine. Of all the poets that have 
sung in English this is most truly the poet for poets; 
of all the poets that have sung in English, Shake- 
speare alone excepted, this has had upon what is 
distinctively the modern structure of the art the most 
stimulating influence; and of all the poets that have 
sung in English, Shakespeare alone excepted, this 
had the greatest gifts and surest inspiration. 

We shall see what Chatterton did for English 
poetry if we compare what it was before him with 
what it became afterward; then the seeds of much 
of the splendid modern growth appear in his poems, 
not elsewhere. Taking a large view of modern 
poetry as an art, and tracing back its basic principles 
— designed melody of expression, designed use of 
color and form, the spirit of intimate and loving 
communion with nature, song that aims to transfer 
a feeling, not to express a sentiment nor to embody a 
syllogism — the evolution of all these things may 
be traced back from Swinburne to Tennyson, from 
Tennyson to Shelley and Keats, from Shelley and 
Keats to Coleridge and Wordsworth, from poet to 

1 Not only this, but many a line in " Endymion " and the Odes was ob- 
viously inspired by lines in " Aella " and in Chatterton "s songs. 



THE WORLD'S VERDICT 251 

poet, from generation to generation, back to the 
charity school boy of Bristol, but no farther. 

From its long descent into the desert places that 
began after Milton, English poetry was certain to 
return, else it would have perished of inanition. On 
the starveling desert fare and laden with the rub- 
bish of metaphysics and "thought," it lost all trace 
of the beauty and freshness of its youth. From the 
beginning of Dryden to the end of Churchill it grew 
steadily worse; at its lowest ebb it was the most 
contemptible lot of rhymes ever tolerated without 
the precincts of Bedlam. The dreary inanities of 
Marvel, Tickell, Shenstone, Akenside and Young 
belong to the curiosities of literature, not to poetry. 
Pope turned the noble art into mere joiner's work, 
very neat and tasteful, but still joinery; and John- 
son exhibited to the world how the thing was done 
by laboriously cutting up prose into five-foot lengths 
and squaring the ends, a process that needed only 
water-power or steam to run itself. No one in the 
whole English-speaking circuit from the Hebrides 
(by a stretch) to far Cathay, thought of poetry as an 
art. It was merely a neat and handy vehicle for 
one of three purposes: 

Item, to express an attenuated sentiment about a 
lady's hand, looking-glass, glove or what-not foolery. 

Item, to express to a waiting world some foolish 
person's foolish belief about creeds and policies. 



252 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

Item, to express Mr. Dryden's personal contempt 
for Mr. Shadwell and vice versa. 

In these unspeakable depths dwelt the glorious 
maid for one hundred and twenty-five years, heaven 
help all concerned. 

Very likely the human mind went with her. From 
the restoration of the Stuarts for one hundred years the 
world progressed little. Sloth and sensuality gripped 
the fortunate; ignoble content laid its leaden mace 
on the toilers. Wars there were, but none that made 
for the benefit of mankind, one king warring against 
another for a bit of land or a wormy title or some- 
thing equally worthless. Prose became (except for 
Swift) pointless twaddle; superstition had youthful 
science bound and gagged; the universities rumbled 
around the circles of classicism, lost to the world in 
fogs of their own making; educated people believed 
in witches and ghosts and that the touch of a fat 
dull king's forefinger was fatal to bacteria. Nobody 
discovered anything except new ways to make pork- 
pies. The throne ruled, the church ruled, the people 
slept; and for any man to get outside the smooth, 
main traveled path was lunacy. 

In the end some one was certain to revolt. You 
might say in the end some one was certain to dis- 
cover America, but we do not stop to think of that 
when we honor Christopher Columbus, plunging 
with three skiffs into the night of unknown seas. 



THE WORLD'S VERDICT 253 

In English literature the divine gift of revolt fell 
upon a boy that killed himself when he was seven- 
teen years and nine months old. He was the first 
to break away from the juiceless formulas of pedantry, 
he was the first to recognize the art possibilities of 
medievalism, he was the first to see that the divine 
art of poetry touches music with one hand and paint- 
ing with the other, and has no mission but the mission 
of her sister arts. He was the first person in one 
hundred years to see that the music of speech might 
be varied in verse to suit various emotions, that there 
were limitless forms for limitless feelings, that the 
iambic pentameter in rhymed couplets was not 
necessarily sacred because it had been used by a little 
man with a spiteful wit, and that poetry is not to be 
made with a hammer. It was he that showed the dif- 
ferent time-bars of English poetry and what they are 
for. It was he, this boy, that started the movement 
culminating in our age in the multitudinous varieties 
of form and stanza and movement and beauty that 
lay irresistible charm upon us in the poetry of 
Tennyson and Swinburne. It is so, he was the 
pioneer, this boy; there are fifty-seven measures in 
the Rowley poems alone, and with the exception of 
Herrick, that is more than you will find in any pre- 
ceding English poet from Chaucer down. 1 Here was 

1 But in the case of Herrick it should be remembered that the stanzaic variations 
meant nothing but fantasy and a desire for novelty. In the case of Chatterton the 
stanzaic form is invariably molded to the impression to be conveyed. 



254 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

the spark that lighted the torch that fired the train. 
Coleridge came and saw how here the spray upsprang 
from the bird taking its flight, the cowslip trembled 
with the dew, the ripe apples bent the bough to the 
ground, and in line after line of his greatest singing 
you can see the result. One after another the poets 
that founded the modern school of art poetry came 
to this shrine; dumb to the world, the voice spoke 
clearly enough to them; they heard it reverently, 
Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, this voice of the charity 
school boy that starved in London, and thousands 
of later singers repeat unconsciously what it taught 
these prophets. 

What nature means to him is the measure of any 
artist. We know what it means to Swinburne and 
what it meant to Tennyson, Morris, Rossetti, Keats, 
Shelley, Wordsworth, as we see or hear the signifi- 
cance unfolded in those great word-pictures and 
word-symphonies. We do not stop to think that 
this intimate view of nature, this embracing sym- 
pathy and this purpose to paint her and sing her just 
as she is, trace, in their modern forms, straight back 
to Chatterton and no farther. The first definite 
suggestion that poetry is on one side a kind of paint- 
ing was his; the first definite practise of poetry 
as painting to the imagination was his. The first 
practical recognition of the truth that to name an 
object does not necessarily call up a perfect vision 



THE WORLD'S VERDICT 255 

of it, that it must be specified and illuminated and 
vitalized to the mind's eye, that was his also, and 
above all the firm underlying belief that the purpose 
of poetry is to transfer a feeling, not to preach ser- 
mons nor to elaborate metaphysics. 

In these days we are so accustomed to such ideas 
we may not easily realize the time when they were 
not. But to see what was before Chatterton's time 
the poet's view of nature, take a few examples in 
which his predecessors deal with natural aspects. 
Abraham Cowley, for instance: 

In a deep vision's intellectual scene, 

Beneath a bower for sorrow made, 

Th' uncomfortable shade 

Of the black yew's unlucky green, 

Mixt with the mourning willow's careful gray, 

Where reverend Cham cuts out his famous way, 

The melancholy Cowley lay. 

Or Andrew Marvell, "Thoughts in a Garden": 

No white nor red was ever seen 
So amorous as this lovely green. 
Fond lovers, cruel as their flame, 
Cut in these trees their mistress' name. 



What wond'rous life is this I lead! 
Ripe apples drop about my head; 
The luscious clusters of the vine 
Upon my mouth do crush their wine; 



256 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

The nectarine, and curious peach, 
Into my hands themselves do reach; 
Stumbling on melons, as I pass, 
Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass. 

Or Denham, describing the Thames in "Cooper's 
Hill": 

My eye descending from the hill surveys 
Where Thames among the wanton valley strays: 
Thames, the most loved of all the Ocean's sons 
By his old sire, to his embraces runs: 
Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea, 
Like mortal life to meet eternity. 

No unexpected inundations spoil 

The mower's hopes nor mock the ploughman's toil: 

But godlike his unwearied bounty flows; 

First loves to do, then loves the good he does. 

Or Dryden lifting his voice to Mrs. Anne Killegrew: 

Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies, 
Made in the last promotion of the bless'd; 
Whose palms, new pluck'd from paradise, 
In spreading branches more sublimely rise, 
Rich with immortal green, above the rest: 
Whether, adopted to some neighb'ring star, 
Thou roll'st above us in thy wandering race. 

Or Pope singing of Windsor Forest: 

Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain, 
Here earth and water seem to strive again; 
Not chaos-like together crush 'd and bruis'd, 
But as the world, harmoniously confus'd: 



THE WORLD'S VERDICT 257 

Where order in variety we see, 
And where, though all things differ, all agree. 
Here waving groves a chequer'd scene display, 
And part admit, and part exclude the day. 

Or Thomson, the admired artificer of the "Sea- 
sons" singing of Autumn: 

But should a quicker breeze amid the boughs 
Sob, o'er the sky the leafy deluge streams; 
Till choked and matted with the dreary shower, 
The forest walks, at every rising gale, 
Roll wide the wither'd waste and whistle bleak. 
Fled is the blasted verdure of the fields; 
And, shrunk into their beds, the flowery race 
Their sunny robes resign. 

Or Thomson to the Nightingale: 

O Nightingale, best poet of the grove, 

That plaintive strain can ne'er belong to thee, 

Bless'd in the full possession of thy love: 
Oh, lend that strain, sweet Nightingale, to me! 

In other words, nature was to all these and their 
fellows a sealed book. They saw the cover, of the 
contents they knew naught. All flowers looked alike 
to them; the field was but a field. To see how 
difFerent it is to those that had really communed with 
her, we need but compare Thomson's "Nightin- 
gale" with Keats's, or Pope's daubed blur of "Wind- 
sor Forest" with any one of one hundred pictures 



258 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

in Rossetti — "The Day Dream," to pick one at 
random. And to see how the boy Chatterton was of 
the new school and not of the old, we should read 
together Thomson's feeble lines on "Autumn" with 
that immortal picture: 

When Autumn, bleak and sun-burnt, doth appear, 
With his gold hand gilding the falling leaf, 
Bringing up Winter to fulfil the year, 
Bearing upon his back the ripened sheaf. 

The passing of the storm in the "Excelente Balade 
of Charitie" is the first attempt in English to utilize 
towards a designed effect both the sound resources 
and the picture resources of the language, and the 
song to Birtha in "Aella," "Oh Sing unto my 
Roundelay," is the first attempt after Milton's 
"1/ Allegro" to make a word melody directly accord- 
ant with the sense. The pictures scattered through 
the Rowley poems, as of Spring, beginning "The 
budding floweret blushes at the light"; of morning, 
"The morn begins along the East to shine"; the 
vital images of particular scenes, the clean work- 
manship and the controlling view, which is always 
strictly that of the artist, always of one possessed 
of a certain definite feeling and striving to transfer 
that feeling to others, crown this boy as the first of 
the new school. 

This excellent city of Bristol, that now gathers so 




"5> 
£ 8 



E -a 
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b: 1 



5 



THE WORLD'S VERDICT 259 

intelligently and guards so jealously the memorials of 
her greatest son, was long accused of indifference to 
his fame. Perhaps unjustly; but seventy years ago 
there was a vicar of St. Mary Redcliffe that obsti- 
nately refused to permit a monument of Chatterton 
to stand in the churchyard, and thus he clouded the 
city's reputation. Yet I find in the City Library of 
Bristol an interesting pamphlet giving an account 
of an honor paid to Chatterton's memory that has 
hitherto escaped the notice of his biographers. The 
pamphlet bears this title: 

The Ode, Songs, Choruses, &c. 

For the Concert in 

Commemoration of Chatterton, the Celebrated Bristol Poet, 

As it was performed at the Assembly Room in Prince's 

Street, Bristol, on Friday, the 3rd of December, 

1784. 

Written by Mr. Jenkins. 

Dear is his memory to us, and long 

Long, shall his attributes be known in song. 

— Chatterton's Miscellanies. 

London: 

Printed and Sold by J. Bew, Paternoster Row 

(Price One Shilling.) 

The pamphlet begins with a short and not wholly 
correct account of Chatterton's life, in which for 



260 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

instance the date of his death is said to be August 22, 
but no one can think that it is unappreciative. On 
the programme performed on this interesting occa- 
sion was a "New Overture," a "Song by Miss 
Twist," a piece played by a quartette of violins and 
clarinets, a "Glee," sung by three voices, Messrs. 
Blanchard, Wordsworth, and Russel, with an oboe 
concerto; a "Song by Mr. Wordsworth" with a 
violin concerto, and a duet; after which came the 
reading of the ode in honor of Chatterton. This 
ode was an elaborate composition. It began with 
a chorus: 

Strike the Lyre, the Trumpet sound, 

Wake to Joy each silent string, 
Let the vaulted Roof rebound, 

While the immortal Bard we sing: 
While we proclaim our darling Son, 
Our pride, our Glory — Chatterton! 

This was followed by two airs for solo female 
voices, a recitative and a final chorus as follows: 

Swell the loud Strain, to Rapture raise each Voice, 
Let drooping Genius and her Sons rejoice! 
And thou, our Avon, proudly roll along 
And to thy hallow'd namesake bear the Song, 
Tell the Vain River, that thy Stream hath lost 
Almost as sweet a Swan as hers could boast. 

The monument was proposed about 1838, and 
there is still extant an indignant letter to the "Ad- 



THE WORLD'S VERDICT 261 

mirers of Chatterton," written in that year by one 
E. M. Bath, in which the project is severely denounced 
on the ground that Thomas Rowley was the real 
poet and that in honoring Chatterton the town 
would be honoring a mere transcriber of another 
man's works. The letter has further interest from 
the fact that its author is one of the very few men 
that have found Horace Walpole's conduct towards 
Chatterton to be admirable. It also defends Bristol 
from the charge of indifference to the boy's memory, 
arguing that there was nothing about him worth 
remembering. But the money for the monument 
was secured in spite of these cogent reasonings, and 
the work was completed, when the project encountered 
an unforeseen obstacle in the vicar. His ground of 
opposition was that Chatterton had been an unbe- 
liever, that he had told untruths, that he had taken 
his own life in defiance of the law of the church in 
such cases made and provided, and it was not for 
the morals of the young that one so depraved should 
be remembered. From this view no arguments 
could move him; but he finally consented to a com- 
promise. He agreed to allow the monument to be 
erected provided it were inscribed with nine lines of his 
selecting from Young's "Night Thoughts," consist- 
ing of a thundering condemnation of infidels. The 
proponents of the monument felt the insult intended 
upon the boy's memory, but rather than that he 



262 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

should longer be unhonored they consented. The 
memorial was accordingly raised on the north side of 
the church, where had originally stood some miser- 
able dwelling houses and where the ground was con- 
sequently unconsecrated and not liable to be harmed 
by a monument to a boy that had been driven to 
suicide. But it had not long been in place when 
the vestry determined to restore the North Porch. 
How the monument interfered with the restoration 
I cannot say, but on the ground of such interference 
the vicar ordered the stone removed, and for years 
it lay neglected in the crypt. At last the "obstinate 
heretic" of a vicar being removed or dying, a suc- 
cessor proved to be of good sense, and permitted the 
monument to be reinstated. It may do ease to those 
careful of such matters to know that it is still outside 
the lines of consecrated ground. It stands in the 
churchyard on the north and somewhat to the east 
of the North Porch. A pedestal and low shaft of a 
gray limestone are surmounted by a statue of a boy 
in the uniform of the Blue Coat school. Young's 
turgid verses have been erased and in their place 
appear the beautiful lines from Coleridge's "Mon- 
ody," beginning "Sweet flower of hope!" 
One side bears this: 



THE WORLD'S VERDICT 263 

A Posthumous Child, Born in this Parish, 20th November, 

1752. Died in London, 24th August, 1770, aet. 18. 
Admitted into Colston's School, 3rd August, 1760. 
Dunelmus Bristolensis, 1768. 
Rowlie MCCCCXXXXXXIX 1769. 

Another side bears verses by the Rev. J. Eagles: 

A poor and friendless boy was he to whom 

Is raised this monument without a tomb. 

There seek his dust, there o'er his genius sigh, 

Where famished outcasts unrecorded lie. 

Here let his name, for here his genius rose 

To might of ancient days, in peace repose. 

The wondrous boy! to more than want consigned, 

To cold neglect, worse famine of the mind. 

All uncongenial the bright world within 

To that without of darkness and of sin. 

He lived a mystery — died — Here reader pause; 
Let God be judge and Mercy plead the cause. 

And there on a tablet by itself is that simple and 
touching epitaph of his own designing: 

"to the memory of 

THOMAS CHATTERTON 

Reader, judge not. If thou art a Christian, believe that he shall 

be judged by a supreme power; to that power alone is 

he now answerable." 



264 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

We shall never know the face of this marvelous 
boy, for it may be taken for certain that there is no 
picture of him extant. The engraved portrait pre- 
fixed to the "Life" of Chatterton written by Dix is 
absolutely fraudulent. Strange how every phase of 
this story has been distorted by errant zeal or 
intentional deception so that from it every modern 
investigator comes with a new sense of the untrust- 
worthiness of accepted statement! This picture that 
Dix printed is not only an instance in point but has 
a story well worth telling on its own account. A few 
years ago the literary world was astonished by the 
publication in the London Atheneum of the discovery 
of a genuine and undoubted portrait of Chatterton 
in the possession of the family of the late Sir Henry 
Taylor, author of "Philip van Artevelde." The 
publication was made in good faith and on such 
authority that the fact seemed indisputable. That 
the world had not before known what so many men 
had sought was easily accounted for by the fact that 
Sir Henry lived a very retired life at Kensington 
and few persons had opportunity to know of his 
treasure. The portrait was vouched for by an 
inscription on the back, and was accompanied by a 
statement that seemed extremely plausible. It had 
been painted for Chatterton's mother; after Mrs. 
Chatterton's death it had passed to her daughter, then 
become Mrs. Newton. Robert Southey, the laureate, 



THE WORLD'S VERDICT 265 

had been very kind to Mrs. Newton. She had re- 
warded his kindness by giving him this portrait. 
At Southey's death it had been acquired by Words- 
worth, whose sister had eventually presented it 
to Sir Henry Taylor. A discovery of this importance, 
involving so many famous names, naturally aroused 
keen interest. A controversy broke out that re- 
sembled in a small way the combats over Rowley. 
The truth was hard to arrive at. The story seemed 
as well authenticated as anything of the kind 
could be, and yet it was on the face of it most un- 
likely. The picture was of a boy seven, or at the 
most eight years old, and yet it was dated 1762. In 
1762 Chatterton was ten, and it was agreed on all 
hands that he was unusually mature in his looks. 
The picture showed a boy in a red coat. In 1762 
Chatterton was wearing the blue coat of the Colston 
uniform. The picture showed a boy with black or 
dark brown hair and with dark eyes. It was well 
established that Chatterton's hair was flaxen and 
his eyes were gray. In 1762 Mrs. Chatterton was 
struggling hard for daily bread; it was not possible 
that she could have afforded the luxury of a portrait. 
Moreover, there were the pilgrims to Bristol and the 
various investigators that had hunted so many years 
for such a picture and found no trace of it. And 
yet the statements of the inscription were as explicit 
as could be desired. 



266 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

At last, after a patient investigation, aided by the 
willing cooperation of gentlemen in Bristol whose 
grandfathers or great-grandfathers had known the 
facts, the truth was disclosed. The picture was 
really the work of a Bristol artist named Morris, 
who painted it as a study of his own son. Years 
afterward it was engraved by a Bristol engraver 
as a specimen of his work and skill. In 1837, when 
Dix was in Bristol gathering information for his 
"Life," walking down a street one day with George 
Burge they came upon this engraving in the en- 
graver's shop window. Burge suggested that the 
face might have resembled Chatterton. That is all 
we know positively, but the next we hear of the por- 
trait it reappeared in Dix's book as a veritable pic- 
ture of Chatterton. It is charitable to suppose that 
Dix was deceived in some way, but difficult to imagine 
the way. Dix's error, if it were only an error and 
not an intentional fraud, fixed a like blunder upon 
the original painting, but the details of the trans- 
mission through the hands of Southey and Words- 
worth can only be guessed at. Mrs. Newton never 
gave the picture to Southey, but he may have had it 
in another way, and some fertile imagination like 
that of Dix may have supplied the rest of the story. 
Whatever was the origin of the fabrication it was 
strong enough to deceive Sir Henry Taylor. As an 
interesting side-light on what men do, not knowing 



THE WORLD'S VERDICT 267 

what they do, it may be recalled that Dix printed a 
letter from Southey cordially endorsing the engraved 
portrait of the painter's son on the ground that it 
resembled Mrs. Newton. As he had never seen 
Chatterton this was as far as Southey could go. It 
appears that Dix was willing to go farther. 

I offer this remarkable story as an illustration of 
the strange fatality that from the first has overhung 
this boy, and clouded with untruth everything con- 
nected with him, untruth that has injured both his 
artistic standing and his personal reputation. As 
an example of the first I cite the general assumption 
that he was inspired to his imitations by the example 
of Macpherson, and that he was, therefore, the imi- 
tator of an impostor, the second power of a fraud; 
whereas the truth is that the greater part of the 
Rowley poems was completed before Chatterton 
had seen or heard of Ossian. As a specimen of the 
second and still commoner injustice I remind you of 
the assertion that he was from his childhood of a 
sullen and perverse disposition, incorrigible and even 
depraved, whereas in truth he was most kindly, gentle, 
generous, and affectionate; inclined to melancholy 
thought, indeed, but never sullen, and really pos- 
sessed of high ideals. 

General recognition has come tardily to him be- 
cause of the prejudice created by that absurd charge 
of "forgery," because of the other prejudice aroused 



268 THOMAS CHATTERTON 

by his democratic faith, and again because of the 
apparent difficulty of reading and judging his work, 
a difficulty due solely to his imitations of antique 
spelling and phraseology. These are but temporary 
and superficial barriers. No man in English litera- 
ture is surer of his eventual fame. After all, preju- 
dice is but a mortal growth and evanescent : the work 
it has overrun remains forever. Year by year the 
world views with more compassion the struggles of 
this sorely tried and lonely soul, with more tears the 
few little footsteps wandering in the dark, with more 
admiration the clarity of the genius that shone 
through all. Year by year, more of us, I think, per- 
ceive how just and true was the estimate of Dante 
Gabriel Rossetti, when he unhesitatingly placed 
Thomas Chatterton among the greatest poets and 
most amazing minds that have lighted the ways of 
men. 



APPENDIX 



I 



HISTORIE OF PEYNCTERS YN ENGLANDE 
Bie T. Rowlie 

[This document accompanied Chatterton's second letter to Walpole.] 

Haveynge sayde yn oder places of peyncteynge and the 
ryse thereof, eke of somme peyncteres; nowe bee ytte toe 
be sayde of oders wordie of note. Afwolde was a skylled 
wyghte yn laieynge onne of coloures; hee lyved yn Merciae, 
ynne the daies of Kynge OfFa, ande depycted the counte- 
naunce of Eadburga, his dawter, whyche depycture beeynge 
borne to Bryghtrycke he toke her to wyfe, as maie be seene 
at large in Alfridus. 1 Edilwald, Kynge of the Northumbers, 
understode peyncteynge, botte I cannot fynde anie piece 
of hys nemped. 2 Inne a mansion at Copenhamme I have 
seene a peyncteynge of moche antiquite, where is sitteynge 
Egbrychte in a royaul mannere, wythe kynges yn chaynes 
at hys fote, wythe meincte semblable 3 fygures whyche were 
symboles of hys lyfe; and I haveth noted the Saxons to be 
more notable ynne lore and peyncteynge thann the Nor- 
mannes, nor ys the monies sythence the daies of Willyame 

1 This is a writer whose works I have never been happy enough to meet with. 

2 Nemped — mentioned. 3 Semblable — metaphorical. 

269 



270 APPENDIX 

le Bastarde so fayrelie stroken as aforetyme. I eke haveth 
seene the armorie of East Sexe most fetyvelie * depycted, 
ynn the medst of an auntyaunte wall. Botte nowe we bee 
upon peyncteynge, sommewhatte maie bee saide of the 
poemes of these daies, whyche bee toe the mynde what 
peyncteynge bee toe the eyne, the coloures of the fyrste 
beeynge mo dureynge. Ecca Byshoppe of Hereforde yn 
D. LVII. was a goode poete, whome I thus Englyshe: — 

Whan azure skie ys veylde yn robes of nyghte 

Whanne glemmrynge dewe droppes stounde 2 the faytours 3 eyne, 
Whanne flying cloudes, betinged wyth roddie lyghte, 

Doth on the bryndlynge wolfe and wood bore shine, 
Whanne even star, fayre herehaughte of nyghte, 
Spreds the darke douskie sheene along the mees, 4 

The wrethynge neders 5 sends a glumie 6 lyghte, 
And houlets wynge from levyn 7 blasted trees. 

Arise mie spryghte and seke the distant delle, 

And there to echoing tonges thie raptured joies ytele. 

Gif thys manne han no hande for a peynter, he had a 
head; a pycture appearethe ynne each lyne, and I wys so 
fyne an even sighte mote be drawn as ynne above. In 
anoder of hys vearses he saithe: — 

Whanne sprynge came dauncynge onne a flourette bedde, 
Dighte ynne greene raimente of a chaungynge kynde; 

The leaves of hawthorne boddeynge on hys hedde, 
And wythe prymrosen coureynge to the wynde: 

1 Fetyvelie — elegantly, handsomely. 2 Stounde — astonish. 

3 Faytours — travellers. 4 Mees — mead. 

6 Neders — adders, used here perhaps as a glow-worm. 

6 Glumie — dull, gloomy. 7 Levyn — blasted by lightning. 



APPENDIX 271 

Thanne dydd the Shepster l hys longe albanne 2 spredde 
Uponne the greenie bancke and daunced rounde 

Whilest the soest flowretes nodded onne his hedde, 
And hys fayre lambes besprenged 3 onne the grounde, 

Anethe hys fote the brooklette ranne alonge, 

Whyche strolleth rounde the vale to here his joyous songe. 

Methynckethe these bee thoughtes notte oft to be metten 
wyth, and ne to bee excellede yn theyre kynde. Elmar, 
Byshoppe of Selesie, was fetyve yn workes of ghastlieness, 4 
for the whyche take yee thys speeche: — 

Nowe maie alle helle open to glope thee downe, 

Whylst azure merke 5 immenged 6 wythe the daie, 
Shewe lyghte on darkned peynes to be moe roune, 7 

O mayest thou die lyvinge deathes for aie: 
Maie floodes of Solfirre bear thie sprighte anoune 8 

Synkeynge to depths of woe, maie levynne brondes 9 
Tremble upon thie peyne devoted crowne, 

And senge thie alle yn vayne emploreynge hondes; 
Maie all the woes that Godis wrathe can sende 
Upon thie heade alyghte, and there theyre furie spende. 

Gorweth of Wales be sayde to be a wryter goode, botte 
I understande notte that tonge. Thus moche for poetes, 
whose poesies do beere resemblance to pyctures in mie 
unwordie opynion. Asserius was wryter of hystories; he 
ys buryed at Seyncte Keynas College ynne Keynshamm 

1 Shepster — shepherd. s Merke — darkness. 

2 Albanne — a large loose white robe. 6 Immenged — mingled. 

3 Besprenged — scattered. 7 Roune — terrific. 

4 Ghastlieness — terror. 8 Anoune — ever and anon. 

9 Levynne brondes — thunderbolts. 



272 



APPENDIX 



wythe Turgotte, anoder wryter of hystories, Inne the walle 
of this college ys a tombe of Seyncte Keyna ' whych was 
ydoulven anie, and placed ynne the walle, albeit done yn 
the daies of Cerdyke, as appeared bie a crosse of leade 
upon the kyste; 2 ytte bee moe notablie performed than 
meynte 3 of ymageries 4 of these daies. Inne the chyrche 
wyndowe ys a geason 5 peyncteynge of Seyncte Keyna 
syttynge yn a trefoliated chayre, ynne a long alban braced 
wythe golden gyrdles from the wayste upwarde to the 
breaste, over the whyche ys a small azure coape; 6 benethe 
ys depycted Galfridus, MLV. whyche maie bee that Geof- 
froie who ybuylded the geason gate 7 to Seyncte Augustynes 
chapele once leadynge. Harrie Piercie of Northomber- 
lande was a quaynte 8 peyncter; he lyvede yn M. C. and 
depycted severalle of the wyndowes ynne Thonge Abbye, 
the greate windowe atte Battaile Abbeie; he depycted the 
face verie welle wythalle, botte was lackeynge yn the most- 
to-bee-loked-to-accounte, proportione. John a Roane 
payncted the shape of a hayre: he carved the castle for the 
sheelde of Gilberte Clare of thek 8 feytyve performaunce. 
Elwarde ycorne 10 the castle for the seal of Kynge Harolde 
of most geason worke; nor has anie seale sythence bynne so 
rare, excepte the seale of Kinge Henrie the fyfthe, corven 
by Josephe Whetgyfte. Thomas a Baker from corveynge 
crosse loafes, tooke to corveying of ymageryes, whych he 

i This I believe is there now. 2 Kyste — coffin. 

3 Meynte — many. 4 imageries — statues, etc. 

6 Geason — curious. 6 Coape — cloak or mantle. 

7 This gate is now standing in this city, though the chapel is not to be seen. 

8 Quaynte — curious. 9 Thek — very. 

10 Ycorne — a contraction of ycorven, carved. 



APPENDIX 273 

dyd most fetyvelie; he lyved ynne the cittie of Bathe, beeynge 
the fyrste yn Englande, thatte used hayre ynne the bowe 
of the fyddle, 1 beeynge before used wythe peetched hempe 
or flax. Thys carveller dyd decase yn MLXXI. Thus 
moche for carvellers and peyncters. 

[Comment by Chatterton.] 

John was inducted abbot in the year 1146, and sat in the 
dies 29 years. As you approve of the small specimen of 
his poetry, I have sent you a larger, which though ad- 
mirable is still (in my opinion) inferior to Rowley 2 whose 
works when I have leisure I will fairly copy and send you. 

1 Nothing is so much wanted as a History of the Antiquity of the Violin, nor is 
any antiquary more able to do it than yourself. Such a piece would redound to 
the honour of England, as Rowley proves the use of the bow to be knowne to the 
Saxons, and even introduced by them. 

2 None of Rowley's pieces were ever made public, being, till the year 163 1, shut 
up in the iron chest in Redcliffe Church. 



II 

WILLIAM CANYNGE 

[The following extracts are from Mr. George Pryce's "Memorials of the 
Canynges'' Family and their Times," Bristol, 1854; an interesting book to 
which I am under very great obligations for information, much of it now 
inaccessible elsewhere.] 

Towards the close of the year in which William Canynges 
for the fourth time occupied the chair of Bristol's Chief 
Magistrate, the old town was visited by King Edward IV, 
who was then on a tour through the Western Counties. In 
recording this visit, quaint old John Stow informs his 
readers that "in the harvest season, King Edward rode to 
Canterbury and to Sandwich, and so along by the sea 
coast to Hampton, and from thence into the Marches of 
Wales, and to Bristow, where he was most royally received"; 
and the following very curious account of the pageant 
which welcomed him is supplied by the learned editor of 
Warkworth's Chronicle, in his notes appended to that 
volume. 1 It commences with 

"The receyvyng of Kyng Edward iiij at Brystowe. 
"First, at the comying inne atte temple gate, there stode 
Wylliam Conquerour, with iij. lordis, and these were his wordis: — 

1 This example from a genuine old chronicle should be compared with 
Chatterton's account of the opening of the old bridge and the specimens of 
his work in the antique style. 

274 



APPENDIX 275 

'Wellcome Edwarde! oure son of high degre; 
Many yeeris hast thou lakkyd owte of this londe — 
I am thy forefader, Wylliam of Normandye, 
To see thy welefare here through Goddys sond.' 

"Over the same gate stondyng a greet Gyant delyveryng the 
keyes. 

"The Receyvyng atte Temple Crosse next following; — 

"There was Seynt George on horsbakke, uppon a tent, fyghtyng 
with a dragon; and the Kyng and the Quene on hygh in a eastell, 
and his doughter benethe with a lambe; and atte the sleying of the 
dragon ther was a great melody of aungellys." 

The welcome given to the king by William Canynges, 
and the feasting of the monarch in his house, has been 
already sufficiently noticed; but the particulars of the visit, 
so far as it regards the wealthy merchant's commercial 
affairs, (and upon the prosperous state of which the sovereign 
calculated he should exact, in conjunction with aids from 
other opulent traders in the old town, the forced loan before 
referred to,) require more than a merely passing remark. 

It appears that on his arrival, Edward commenced 
taking stock of the port; that is, the number of vessels 
belonging to each individual and their value was carefully 
ascertained; and then a certain amount, not mentioned, 
was assessed upon them to be paid to the King. Although 
the names and tonnage of the vessels possessed by other 
merchants at this time in Bristol are not recorded, those 
belonging to William Canynges have been noted by William 
of Wyrcestre, and described as follows: — The Mary 
Canynges, 400 tons burthen; the Mary Radclyf, 500 tons; 



27 6 APPENDIX 

Mary and John, 900 tons; the Galyot, 50 tons; the Cateryn, 
140 tons; the Marybat, 220 tons; the Margyt de Tynly, 
200 tons; the lytylle Nicholas, 140 tons; the Kateryn de 

Boston, 220 tons; the ship, in Iselond, (not 

Ireland, as Mr. Barrett calls it,) 160 tons; in the whole, 
2853 tons of shipping, manned by 800 mariners. 

In this year also Canynges again evidenced his love of 
Mother Church, as appears by the following which occurs 
among the "City Benefactions," recorded by Barrett: — 

"1466. William Canynges gave by deed for 

divine offices in Redcliffe Church 340 o o 

And in plate to the said Church: 160 ° ° 

Vested in the vicar and proctors of Redcliffe: £500 00" 

To this donation I shall have occasion to refer at greater 
length when treating of the structure named in the bequest. 
The Mayor's Calendar, by Robert Ricaut, preserved in 
the archives of the Corporation, under date of 1467, says: 
"This yere the said William Canynges Maire shulde have 
be (been) maired (married) by the Kyng our Souverain 
Lord comandement as it was saide Wherefore the said 
Canynges gave up the Worlde and in all haste toke ordirs 
upon hym of the gode Bisshop of Worcestre called Carpyn- 
ter, and was made Preest and sange his furst Masse at our 
Lady of Redclif the yere folowying R Jakys beeng Maire 
at Whitsontide and after that he was Dean of Westbury 
certein years & dececed & was buried Worshipfully at 
Redeclif by his Wife in the south ende of the Medyll yle of 
the saide Churche." 



Ill 

CANYNGE AND ROWLEY 

[This specimen of Rowley's Prose is taken from "Chatterton's Miscellanies," 
London, 1778. It is called "Some farther Account of this Extraordinary Person 
[Canynge] written by Rowley the Priest."] 

I was fadre confessor to masteres Roberte and mastre 
William Cannings. Mastre Robert was a man after his 
fadre's own harte, greedie of gaynes and sparynge of alms 
deedes; but master William was mickle courteous, and 
gave me many marks in my needs. At the age of 22 years 
deaces'd master Roberte, and by master William's desyre 
bequeathed me one hundred marks; I went to thank master 
William for his mickle courtesie, and to make tender of 
myselfe to him. — Fadre quode he, I have a crotchett in my 
brayne, that will need your aide. Master William, said I, 
if you command me I will go to Roome for you; not so farr 
distant, said he: I ken you for a mickle learnd priest; if you 
will leave the parysh of our ladie, and travel for mee, it 
shall be mickle to your profits. 

I gave my hands, and he told mee I must goe to all the 
abbies and pryorys, and gather together auncient drawyings, 
if of anie account, at any price. Consented I to the same, 
and pursuant sett out the Mundaie following for the minister 
of our Ladie and Saint Goodwyne, where a drawing of a 
steeple, contryvd for the belles when runge to swaie out of 

*77 



278 APPENDIX 

the syde into the ayre, had I thence; it was done by Syr 
Symon de Mambrie, who, in the troublesomme rayne of 
kyng Stephen, devoted himselfe, and was shorne. 

Hawkes showd me a manuscript in Saxonne, but I was 
onley to bargayne for drawyings. — The next drawyings I 
metten with was a church to be reard, so as in form of a 
cross, the end standing in the ground; a long manuscript 
was annexd. Master Canning thought no workman 
culd be found handie enough to do it. — The tale of the 
drawers deserveth relation. — Thomas de Blunderville, a 
preeste, although the preeste had no allows, lovd a fair 
mayden, and on her begatt a sonn. Thomas educated 
his sonn; at sixteen years he went into the warrs, and neer 
did return for five years. — His mother was married to a 
knight, and bare a daughter, then sixteen, who was seen 
and lovd by Thomas, sonn of Thomas, and married to him, 
unknown to her mother, by Ralph de Mesching, of the 
minister, who invited, as custom was, two of his brothers, 
Thomas de Blunderville and John Heschamme. Thomas 
nevertheless had not seen his sonn for five years, yet kennd 
him instauntly; and learning the name of the bryde, took 
him asydde and disclosd to him that he was his sonn, and 
was weded to his own sistre. Yoynge Thomas toke on so 
that he was shorne. 

He drew manie fine drawyings on glass. 

The abott of the minster of Peterburrow sold it me; he 
might have bargaynd 20 marks better, but master William 
would not part with it. The prior of Coventree did sell 



APPENDIX 279 

me a picture of great account, made by Badilian Y'allyanne, 
who did live in the reign of Kynge Henrie the First, a mann 
of fickle temper, havyng been tendred syx pounds of silver 
for it, to which he said naie, and afterwards did give it to 
the then abott of Coventriee. In brief, I gathered together 
manie marks value of fine drawyings, all the works of 
mickle cunning. — Master William culld the most choise 
parts, but hearing of a drawying in Durham church hee 
did send me. 

Fadree, you have done mickle well, all the chatills are 
more worth then you gave; take this for your paynes: so 
saying, he did put into my hands a purse of two hundreds 
good pounds, and did say that I should note be in need; 
I did thank him most heartily. — The choice drawying, 
when his fadre did dye, was begunn to be put up, and 
somme houses neer the old church erased; it was drawn 
by Aflema, preeste of St. Cutchburts, and offerd as a 
drawyng for Westminster, but cast asyde, being the tender 
did not speak French. — I had now mickle of ryches, and 
lyvd in a house on the hyll, often repayrings to mastere 
William, who was now lord of the house. I sent him my 
verses touching his church, for which he did send me mickle 
good things. — In the year kyng Edward came to Bristow, 
master Cannings send for me to avoid a marrige which 
the kyng was bent upon between him and a ladie he neer 
had seen, of the familee of the Winddevilles; the danger 
were nigh, unless avoided by one remidee, an holie one, 
which was, to be ordained a sonn of holy church, beyng 
franke from the power of kynges in that cause, and cannot 



280 APPENDIX 

be wedded. — Mr. Cannings instauntlysent me to Carpenter, 
his good friend, bishop of Worcester, and the Fryday 
following was prepaird and ordaynd the next day, the daie 
of St. Mathew, and on Sunday sung his first mass in the 
church of our Ladie, to the astonishing of kyng Edward, 
who was so furiously madd and ravyngs withall, that 
master Cannings was wyling to give him 3000 markes, 
which made him peace again, and he was admyted to the 
presence of the kyng, staid in Bristow, partook of all his 
pleasures and pastimes till he departed the next year. 

I gave master Cannings my Bristow tragedy, for which 
he gave me in hands twentie pounds, and did praise it more 
then I did think my self did deserve, for I can say in troth 
I was never proud of my verses since I did read master 
Chaucer; and now haveing nought to do, and not wyling 
to be ydle, I went to the minster of our Ladie and Saint 
Goodwin, and then did purchase the Saxon manuscripts, 
and sett my selfe diligentley to translate and worde it in 
English metre, which in one year I performd and styled 
it the Battle of Hastyngs; master William did bargyin for 
one manuscript, and John Pelham, an esquire, of Ashley, 
for another. — Master William did praise it muckle greatly, 
but advisd me to tender it to no man, beying the menn 
whose name were therein mentiond would be offended. 
He gave me 20 markes, and I did goe to Ashley, to master 
Pelham, to be payd of him for the other one I left with him. 

But his ladie being of the family of the Fiscamps, of 
whom some things are said, he told me he had burnt it, 



APPENDIX 281 

and would have me burnt too if I did not avaunt. Dureing 
this dinn his wife did come out, and made a dinn to speake 
by a figure, would have over sounded the bells of our Ladie 
of the Cliffe; I was fain content to gett away in a safe skin. 

I wrote my Justice of Peace, which master Cannings 
advisd me secrett to keep, which I did; and now being 
grown auncient I was seizd with great pains, which did 
cost me mickle of marks to be cured off. — Master William 
offered me a cannon's place in Westbury-College, which 
gladly had I accepted but my pains made me to stay at 
home. After this mischance I livd in a house by the 
Tower, which has not been repaird since Robert Consull 
of Gloucester repayrd the castle and wall; here I livd warm, 
but in my house on the hyll the ayer was mickle keen; 
some marks it cost me to put in repair my new house; and 
brynging my chatties from the ould; it was a fine house, 
and I much marville it was untenanted. A person greedy 
of gains was the then possessour, and of him I did buy it 
at a very small rate, having lookd on the ground works and 
mayne supports, and fynding them staunch, and repayrs 
no need wanting, I did buy of the owner, Geoffrey Coombe, 
on a repayring lease for 99 years, he thinkying it would fall 
down everie day; but with a few marks expence did put it 
up a manner neat, and therein I lyvd. 



IV 
THE ROWLEY CONTROVERSY 

[Specimen Pages from "Bryant's Observations." He is treating of the "Battle 
of Hastings," No. i.] 

I cannot quit this subject without mentioning a passage 
in the poet, which may perhaps further illustrate, what I 
have been saying. In the beginning of the Battle of Hast- 
ings, there is a noble apostrophe made to the sea: concern- 
ing whose influence the poet speaks with regret: as it was 
not exerted to the destruction of the Normans. 

O sea, our teeming donore, han thy floud 

Han anie fructuous entendement, 
Thou wouldst have rose and sank wyth tydes of bloude, 

Before Duke William's Knyghts han hither went: 
Whose cowart arrows menie erles (have) sleyne, 

And brued the feeld wyth bloude as season rayne. 

p. 210. 

I mention this, because I think, that we may perceive here 
a tacit reference to an event; which at first sight is not 
obvious. The author in his address to the sea seems to 
say, had thy flood been calculated for any good, it would 
have arisen, before the Norman navy had reached our 
shores: and preserved us from that fatal invasion. When 
therefore he says, had thy flood had any good intention, 

282 



APPENDIX 283 

it is natural to ask, when: and upon what occasion. For 
by the tenour of the words he seems to refer to a time; and 
allude to some particular crisis. And when he adds, after 
this intimation, that it would then have risen before the 
landing of the Normans, he seems to indicate, that it had 
risen, but at a less favourable season. It appears, there- 
fore, to me, that there is in this passage to be observed one 
of those occult allusions, of which I made mention before. 
There is certainly a retrospect to an event, well known in 
the age of the writer: and that event was an overflowing 
of the sea. Now it is remarkable, that at the time, when 
I suppose the first sketch of this poem to have been pro- 
duced, there were great inundations upon the southern 
coasts of England, which are taken notice of by several of 
our historians. They happened in the latter part of the 
reign of William Rufus, and in the early part of that of his 
successor. That in the time of Rufus is mentioned, as 
very extraordinary in its effects; and consequently very 
alarming. The author of the Saxon Chronicle speaks of 
its being attended with the greatest damages ever known. 
The like is recorded by Simeon of Durham. Mare littus 
egreditur; et villas et homines quam plures, etc., demersit. 
Florence of Worcester writes to the same purpose. Great 
part of Zealand is said at this time to have suffered: and 
the Goodwin sands are supposed to have been formed by 
this inundation, which before did not appear. 

Mr. Tyrwhitt thinks, that, instead of O Sea, our teeming 
Donore, the true reading was, O, sea-o'er-teeming Dover. 
This is a very ingenious alteration, and I think highly 
probable. But instead of forming a decompound, I should 



284 APPENDIX 

rather separate the second term, and read, O Sea, o'er- 
teeming Dover: for the address must be to the sea, and not 
to the place: as the poet in the third verse speaks of its 
rising. Now to teem signifies to abound and to be pro- 
lifick: also to pour and fill. Hence we find in Ainsworth, 
teemful, brimful. The same also occurs in Ray's North 
Country words: To teem, to pour out, or lade. Also teem- 
ful, brimful, having as much as can be teemed in; i.e. 
poured in. p. 60, 61. Accordingly, o'er-teeming must 
signify overflowing, pouring over. When therefore the 
poet addresses himself to this o'er-teeming sea, he seems 
to allude to that general inundation, by which Dover, and 
many other places upon the southern coast of this island, 
were overwhelmed. Stow mentions that this flood did 
great mischief to many towns and villages upon the sides 
of the Thames: and it is said to have prevailed in the North, 
as high up as Scotland. But its chief fury seems to have 
been in the narrow seas of the channel; and upon those 
very coasts upon which a few years before the Normans 
had landed. It was natural for a writer of the times to 
allude to an event so recent; and to make a reference so 
obvious. And I do not know any person, to whom this 
address can with propriety be ascribed, but to Turgot. He 
was probably writing at the very time of this calamity: and 
nothing could be more natural than for him at such a 
season to make this apostrophe: which is very much illus- 
trated by the history of those times. 

O Sea, o'er-teeming Dover, had thy flood had any 
good purpose to our country, it would have risen be- 
fore Duke William with his nobles had arrived upon 



APPENDIX 285 

our coasts: and have overwhelmed his army. This in 
great measure authenticates, what is said by Rowley, 
that this poem was a version from a Saxon manuscript: 
and it justifies his invocation of Turgot, to whom he 
was beholden for it. 



INDEX 



'Aella, The Tragedie of,'' 133-150, 166, Catcott, George, 69, 82, 91, in, 181, 



236. 
Angel], Mrs. Frederick, 208, 217, 222. 
Atterbury, proprietor of Marylebone 

Gardens, 208. 

'Balade of Charitie? 210-213, 218. 
Ballance, Mrs., 183, 191, 201, 231. 
Barrett, William, 42, 68, 71-75, 90, 102, 

104, 152, 217. 
Barton, Dr. Cutts, Dean of Bristol, 181. 
Bath, E. M., 261. 
'Battle of Hastings, The," 101-104. 
Beckford, Lord Mayor of London, 161, 

186, 190, 204. 
Bell, Edward, 236. • 

Blake, William, 249. 
Bristol Journal, The, 47, 51, 65, dj. 
'Bristowe Tragedie? 1 13-125. 
Broughton, Rev. Mr., 128. 
Browning, John, JJ. 
Buchanan, Robert, 250. 
Burgum, 85-91. 
Burton, Simon de, 4, in. 
Bute, Earl of, 159, 170. 

Cade, Jack, 3. 

Camplin, Rev. Mr., 181. 

Canynge, William, 1-4, 7, epitaph of, 

n, 13,20,23,35-37, 124. 
Cary, Thomas, 166-167, 182, 204, 225. 
Catcott, Rev. Alexander, 127. 



217, 228. 

Chatterton, Giles Malpas, 15. 

Chatterton, John, 14. 

Chatterton, Mary (Sister), 15, 28. 

Chatterton, Mrs. (Mother of the Poet), 
15-16, 28-29, 3°> 61, 220, 226, 229, 
235, 265. 

Chatterton, Thomas (Father of the 
Poet), 14-15. 

Chatterton, Thomas, birth, 15; sent to 
school, 16; affection for St. Mary 
Redcliffe, 17-19, 22; disposition as a 
boy, 26-29; in Colston's Charity 
School, 30-33, 38 ; the Rowley and 
Canynge story, 36-37, 54; study, 40, 
46; meets Barrett, 43; charitableness, 
44; religion, 47; first published poem, 
47; humorous verse, 49; attack on 
Joseph Thomas, 51; 'Elinoure and 
Juga? 59, 242; apprenticed, 61; on 
' Bristol Bridge? 64; the Manuscripts, 
72-80, 82-84, 945 furnishes Burgum 
a genealogy, 86-91; verses on 'Miss 
Eleanor Hoyland,' 92; 'The Parlya- 
mente of Spryte^s? 95-100; 'The 
Battle of Hastings? 101-104, 154; 
'The Tournament'', in; 'Bristowe 
Tragedie? 1 13-125; letters to Dods- 
ley, 130; ' The Tragedie of Aella? 133— 
150, 166; letters to Horace Walpole, 



287 



288 



INDEX 



Chatterton — Continued 

152-156; defense of Wilkes, 164-165; 
'Resignation,* 169-170; Friendship 
for America, 170; Satirical Verses, 
169-172; narrative and love verses, 
172-174; The 'Will,' 180-181; leaves 
Lambert's employ, 182; arrives at 
London, 184; work in London, 193— 
200; defeat of his friends, 202; ' The 
Revenge,'' 206-208; 'Balade of Chari- 
tie? 210-213, ZI $> sufferings, 218- 
221; his death, 222; burial, 224; the 
interest in his work, 227; publication 
of the Rowley poems, 227; records 
of his life and works, 230-238; Wal- 
pole's treatment of, 243; his work 
and influence on English poetry, 
250-258; memories of, 259. 

Chaucer, 55, 97, 253. 

Churchill, 168, 169. 

Clayfield, Michael, 179, 182. 

Coleridge, S. T., 81, 156, 161, 249, 254, 
262. 

Colston, Edward, 30-31, 50. 

Colston's School, 31, 34, 38, 40-45, 50, 
52-53, 61, 71. 

Cottle, Joseph, 229, 234. 

Court and City, The, 194, 198. 

Cowley, Abraham, 255. 

Croft, Rev. Sir Herbert, 230-232. 

Cross, 221-222, 231. 

Cumberland, George, 233-234. 

Dante, 161. 

Denham, 256. 

Dix, John, his life of Chatterton, 232- 

235, 264-266. 
Dodsley, James, 130-132, 185. 
Dryden, John, 168, 251, 256. 



Edkins, Mrs., 44, 176-177, 233, 235. 
' Elinoure and Juga,* 59, 77 » 2 4 z - 
Elizabeth, Queen, 5. 

Farr, Paul, 180. 

Fell, 202-203. 

Flower, John, 180. 

Freeholders'" Magazine, The, 164-165, 

185, 194, 198. 
Fry, Dr., 223, 225, 242. 

George, the Third, 158, 188. 

Goethe, 230. 

Goldsmith, Oliver, 225-226. 

Goodal's Book Shop, 45. 

Gospel Magazines, The, 194, 198. 

Grafton, Duke of, 164, 169. 

Gray, Thomas, 151- 153, 156. 

Hamlet, 146. 

Henry The Sixth, 1, 3. 

Herrick, Robert, 253. 

Hillsborough, Earl of, 197. 

Hoyland, Miss Eleanor, verses on, 92. 

Hugo, Victor, 161. 

Johnson, Dr., 171, 194, 225. 
Junius, 165, 186, 203. 

Kator, Henry, 166. 

Keats, John, 101, 104, 249. 

Lambert, John, 61, 175, 179, 180. 
Lessing, 161. 
Lichfield, Earl of, 227. 
London Magazine, The, 194. 
London Evening Post, The, 202. 
London Museum, The, 194, 198, 202. 
Lydgate, John, 106. 



INDEX 



289 



Macpherson, 241, 267. 

Margaret, wife of Henry VI, 3. 

Marlowe, 161. 

Marvell, Andrew, 255. 

Marylebone, The, 205. 

Massinger, 161. 

Mease, Matthew, 166. 

Middlesex Journal, The, 178, 185, 194, 

197, 202, 209. 
Milles, Jeremiah, 236-237. 
Milton, John, 161. 
Morris, William, 162. 

Newton, Dr. Bishop of Bristol, 167. 
North Briton, The, 163, 191, 204. 
North, Lord, 197. 

Parlyamente of Sprytes, The, 95-100. 

Phillips, Richard, 14, 17. 

Phillips, Thomas, friendship with 

Chatterton, 34-35, 58, 174. 
Political Register, The, 194, 198. 
Pope, Alexander, 168, 257. 
Public Advertiser, The, 202. 

Reade, Charles, 32, 247. 
'Resignation,'' 169, 170, 198. 
'Revenge, The,'' 206-208. 
Rossetti, D. G., 250, 268. 
Rowley, Thomas, in Bristol, 7, 13, 
35-37, 79- 



Schiller, 145, 161. 
Shakespeare, 144, 241. 
Sharpe, Lancelot, 227. 
Shelley, 161, 178, 249. 
Skeats, W. W., 96, 109. 
Southey, Robert, 229, 264. 
Spenser, 55, 104. 

St. Mary Redcliffe, 4, 7, 13, 14, 22, 68. 
Stockwell, Mrs., 235. 
Swinburne, A. C, 95, 105-113, 146, 
150, 161, 162. 

Taylor, Sir Henry, 264-265. 

Tennyson, 250-253. 

Thistlethwaite, James, 58. 

Thomas, Joseph, 50. 

Thomson, 257. 

'Tournament, The,'' m. 

Town and Country Magazine, 178, 185, 

194, 198, 209, 213, 218, 225. 
Trelawney, 'Records,'' 179. 

Wales, Dowager Princess of, 164, 197. 
Walpole, Horace, 151-156, 195, 226, 

243-245, 248-249, 261. 
Watson, William, 162. 
Whitman, Walt., 162. 
Wilkes, John, 159-160, 163, 186, 202. 
Wilson, Prof., 236, 243, 245. 
Wordsworth, 250. 

Young, Sarah (Mrs. Chatterton), 15, 16. 



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